Wild Dances
by Nemo Nemini
Summary: The Central Park Zoo residents find themselves threatened by the shadows of Hoboken once again... Too bad a certain lemur king only wants to see the light sides of the party. Contains slash/yaoi.
1. Prologue - Hoboken Hell

**A/N:** All Copyrights belong to their respective owners.

Rated M (for some violence and adult themes)

Be warned, this romance isn't going to be a pretty one.

_PROLOGUE_

**HOBOKEN HELL**

_"How do you feel, Your Highness?"_

_Smirking, Clemson looked down on the other lemur._

_The well was deep, yet not too deep to spot his opponent's silhouette clearly down in the dark at its bottom. _

_Julien was struggling to maintain consciousness. He better did, as the water left in the well was up to his shoulders. If he fainted, he was likely to go under._

_Yet this was hard. _

_The feeling of cold piercing every bone in his body had worn him out within the last four hours. His sore and violent shivers had stopped a while ago. The last few times Clemson had come to see after him he'd had his eyes closed and remained almost completely motionless. _

_It seemed he was silently giving in to his fate, not like at the beginning, when he had floundered and splashed and cursed in the icy water and chafed the skin of his paws on trying in vain to clutch at the wet walls in order to pull himself up and out. _

_"So, how do you feel now? Come on, tell me! What's the water like?"_

_Clemson could tell Julien was receiving his voice as his eyelids opened slightly, revealing faint yellow beneath. He leant a little further over the edge of the well in order to get a better look at him._

_"Please…" Julien's voice was a mere whisper of agony. "Please, it's… so cold…"_

_His lips were blue, slightly opened, as if he was about to say more. One single drop of dark red blood trickled from a wound on his lower lip over his chin. It was a cruel, yet incredibly beautiful sight to behold. Clemson sighed with __rapturous delight._

_Not very far, the party continued without them. Nobody paid attention to them._

_"What do you say? Not cold enough? Hold on, I can arrange that."_

_The red lemur bent over the edge of the well, holding a bottle of champagne in his paw and poured down its content – dozens of little ice cubes._

_With a spiteful smirk at the corner of his lips he watched Julien's eyes widen with silent terror._

_"Much better, isn't it, my king."_

_Julien looked up into his face, trying to read his expression, desperately looking for some mercy in it and finding nothing but insanity. He bit his frozen lips, unable to move but trying to think of anything that would distract him from the pain._

_"Please stop, Clemson. Let me out!" _

_Tears welled up in his eyes. He had been in here for too long; he felt his powers were failing him. He couldn't stand this torture any longer. He needed to get out of the iced water so badly he didn't care about anything else Clemson would do to him afterwards. _

_Still, a single tear ran down his cheek as he thought of it._

_He felt so worthless. So damaged. A devilishly handsome lemur king who was no longer royal; he was just small and defeated and covered in endless shame._

_"Please… It hurts." His body was racked by a violent single sob._

_"I know." Clemson dispassionately watched his face contort with pain once more. "But you know you're just getting what you deserved. You were a bad boy, so I need to punish you."_

_At the same moment the first rays of sunlight emanated from the dark sky and fell right into the well, making frozen drops of water sparkle like diamonds upon Julien's silverish fur. Clemson smiled. _

_The new day was dawning already. The bar was still open._

_"Don't worry, I'm gonna get you out of there soon, Julie."_

_The red lemur tossed one last ice cube down at him and turned away._

_"Right after I got myself another drink. A nice and cool one, of course."_


	2. Chapter 1 - Friday Fever

CHAPTER 1

**FRIDAY FEVER**

Once a week the Central Park Zoo inhabitants were reunited at the Zoovenir shop in the back of zookeeper Alice's office. As usual, it was Kowalski presenting the latest news about what to expect from the following week to which everybody listened with more or less interest.

"…And, tonight's final piece of business: the Habitat Owner Association received a very mysterious and cryptic document which, despite all scientific effort by yours truly, could not yet be declassified." Kowalski raised the mentioned sheet of paper up high for everyone to see. "So… Is there anyone able here to read the English language?"

"I like reading" Mort called. Nobody paid attention to him. Phil raised his paw.

"Affirmative" Mason spoke out aloud for him, and the sheet was passed to the two chimpanzees.

"It seems to be an invitation" Mason translated the American Sign Language his comrade used to communicate with, "From now on every Friday all the zoos of the Mid-Atlantic States are invited to send one representative to a meeting where experiences concerning nowadays zoo life in general shall be exchanged and discussed. Our zoo appears to be one of those allowed to participate." He picked something attached to the invitation: a maple leaf blue-colored by bilberry juice. "This here seems to serve as the entrance ticket."

Skipper raised his brow in suspicion. "And? What's that meeting in aid of?"

"This, unfortunately, is unlisted here. But to boot it says here, after the meeting there will be a party and free drinks for everyone."

"Yay, that's a deal!" King Julien shouted as he appeared out of a barrel full of Mort plushies which he threw upon Marlene and the other lemurs in a shower as he raised both arms in glee, "of course, this certain participant is to be me, because who is more representatory than the king of the zoo? Which is me, in case you failed to notice yet…"  
>"Wouldn't you know it" Marlene muttered, buried under a pile of plushies. A rising murmur went through the room as the other animals began discussing the matter but Julien had already snatched the invitation and the maple leaf from Mason's paws.<p>

"Um, Skipper?" Private softly poked the flipper of his leader who stood a little aside of the others, calmly sipping a mug of his fish-dipped midnight coffee. "Shouldn't we, like… tell Julien that he's not the right one for this job, that he'd better leave this to an elite commando unit like us to represent the zoo in a respective manner?"  
>Skipper just shrugged. "I don't think an elite commando unit is actually <em>needed <em>here, young Private. Party and free drinks for everyone? This whole thing doesn't sound too serious to me. Besides, I like our zoo as it is, and I'm not the one to listen to other lunatics like Ringtail complaining about that in theirs there's not enough popcorn or TV time or whatever."

"But Skipper, meeting habitants from other zoos can be a personal and cultural enrichment. Interculturality is an important thing and –."

"Interculturality? The Mid-Atlantic States? Seriously, Private?" Skipper took another sip of coffee. "Who's organizing the whole shebang anyway? I mean, where's this going to take place?"

Phil and Mason took a look at the sheet again.

"Just a minute, it says here that the host is… the Hoboken Zoo."

"_Hoboken?!_" the penguins called out so loudly everyone fell silent in an instant.

"Did you say Hobo-bobobo- bo…" Kowalski stammered.

"Oh… my… holy…" Private fainted before he was able to finish the sentence and Rico immediately regurgitated his largest blaster as if the mere mention was enough to bring the danger of Hoboken right upon them. The other animals looked at them in a mixture of surprise and confusion.

"And what exactly is being the problem?" Julien asked. The lemurs may have had dropped by for a short visit during the last surprise the penguins had experienced in the Hoboken zoo; however, having sat in the penguins' HQ watching TV most of the time while the penguins had struggled for their lives to reveal the truth behind its shiny scenes, the lemurs were far from guessing any of the horror which had happened there.

"The problem is, Ringtail, unless you wanna get yourself killed, you better forget about going there pronto!" Skipper snarled. Julien ignored him.

"Oh, I know what your problem is being! You're all making up this puny, cryingly show because you do not want anyone else to get free drinks and good parties! So everyone will be so much in panic, and in the end you be going there alone and taking all the great stuff for yourselves. This is your game, penguins!"

"Poor unfortunate fool." Skipper just gave him the cold shoulder. "But whatever. If you wanna take the ticket to New Jersey oblivion, it'll be fine with me. Whatever you're doing there, if it serves the reputation of our zoo in any wondrous way, even better. I guess this issue's settled then." He emptied his mug with one last sip. "Roll out, men."

* * *

><p>"Stand at ease, men! Right flipper, arms! Aim blasters and <em>fire!<em>"

At Skipper's command four plungers smacked against the back window of Alice's parked car at the same time. However, only three of them got actually stuck there while the one thrown hardest – by Rico of course – bounced back in a wide parabola and hit a different aim. A scream echoed from behind the car.

The four penguins looked at each other with horror.

"I surrender, I surrender!" Trembling from head to toe and both paws raised, a dead scared Maurice appeared from behind the car with Rico's plunger popped upon his head.

"Rico, you Sunday shooter! You hit a civilian!" Skipper scolded.

"Sorry" Rico grunted. Skipper confronted the trembling incomer with his flippers akimbo.

"Gray lemur, unless you're suicidal it is clearly unwise for civilians to tarry at this place when the boys and me are doing firing practice."

"Yeah, I got that." Maurice mopped his brow. "I was just on my way to see you; how was I supposed to know you were gonna gun me down for that?!"

"Alright." Skipper sighed; as Maurice was quite pale indeed he decided to interrupt the training and listen to him. "Take five, boys."

"Yay!"

Private ran away to reload his plunger blaster, Rico used the break for a little snack and Kowalski quickly got out his clipboard in order to finish the calculation in what angle they had to hit the back window in order to actually break it the next time they'd shoot at it.

"So what's the matter?" the leader asked.

"It's this thing we discussed some nights earlier" Maurice explained, "Hoboken." – The mere name made Skipper flinch. – "See, I'm a bit worried about my king. You know, it's a meeting for one representative of each zoo only, so Mort and I won't be allowed to go with him; and you've seen Julien can be quite… "– Maurice lowered his voice – "_incompetent _on his own_._"

Skipper rolled his eyes. "Tell me something new."

"So, if this place is really as dangerous as you say…"

"You can bet your life on it! Only the toughest, slyest, meanest animals are assembled in this depraved and disease-riddled cesspool they call Hoboken. Last time we were there we defeated the evil mastermind of this zoo but this doesn't mean a thing. You hear me? Not thing! Because the evil dwelling in this zoo, in this entire _city_ can never be erased, it is too much to ever be -."

"Okay, okay!" Maurice decided to cut him short before he could totally obsess over it.

"All I actually wanted to ask was if you… well, couldn't you guys give us a ride for the first time? Just to see what these meetings are going to be about, so we can check out on the place a little bit. If there's danger, Julien won't be alone and hopefully accepting that despite free smoothies it's no good to go there again in the future…"

"I wouldn't bet on that. – Well, I warned him, so if that over-inflated egoist lemur believes he can dance with Lady Danger and gets himself into trouble there, it's his own fault!"

"Please, Skipper… You know what Julien's like. He has no idea what he's letting himself in for!"

The penguin leader glanced at Maurice, and then shrugged. "Alright, we'll do it. But unless we don't find this place crowded with Danish commando units led by a certain puffin, we're out of it right after we dropped Ringtail off there."

"Deal." Maurice smiled. "Thanks, Skipper."


	3. Chapter 2 - Tonight's the Night

CHAPTER 2

**TONIGHT'S THE NIGHT**

Sandwiched as a group of seven in their tiny pink four-seater, the penguins and the lemurs were on their way to Hoboken, New Jersey the following Friday afternoon. Aside from the lack of space the ride didn't get more comfortable with Rico constantly complaining about the football game they were missing to watch right now, Mort trying to play around with the gearshift and Julien asking every twenty seconds if they were there yet.

Everyone was equally relieved to see the road sign _Welcome to Hoboken _finally pass by.

'For reasons of safety', as Skipper had ordered, Kowalski parked illegally somewhere off on a tiny lawn rather than to use the parking lot in front of the zoo. The penguins got their weapons out of the trunk and Julien his party pompons. Mort clung to his feet crying when they had finally reached the zoo.

"I wanna go party with you, King Julien! Why can't I go party with you?!"

"Shut up, Mort!" Julien shook him off as usual. "This is my great moment; do not be ruining it! I – oh gosh, look at that!"

Through the golden bars of the now closed entrance doors they could take a look inside the Hoboken zoo. Although they were in time, they seemed to have missed the actual meeting, as party lights were already up: behind these doors a fancy lot of animals had assembled, the place was crowded with fashionably dressed ladies and gentlemen wearing the latest leaves over their skin, fur, and feathers. The costumes and jewelry glimmering in the street lights were dazzling. Garlands and colorful lampions adorned the fences of the habitats, and soft disco beats filled the nightly air.

"Look how they're all partying like hell!" All beaming with joy and excitement, Julien nervously rearranged his crown. "Be going away with the penguins, Maurice – this is a meeting only for kings. I can't be seen appearing with servants there."

"Oh, don't worry about that" the older lemur muttered, "There ain't really anything that would keep me in this place."

"But I wanna stay!" Mort wailed.

"Good luck, Ringtail" Skipper muttered as Julien took a leap over the zoo wall, "Take care."

The leader of the rookery wasn't convinced at all. He saw the cunning faces and shady characters behind this brilliant looking facade.

"Kowalski, check out on possible surveillance cameras. Rico, disarm anyone armed and dangerous. And Private, stop dancing!"

"Aye aye, Skipper."

Along with Maurice and a crying Mort Skipper watched from the top of the wall what was going on down in the zoo while his men were carrying out his orders. Julien was received by the other animals. They seemed to give him a warm welcome as Savio, the 'King of Hoboken' himself who was the DJ tonight, even played his favorite song when he arrived.

And what a glorious sight King Julien was as he got on the dance floor!

From the moment of his arrival he livened up the place; he soon became the soul of this party, and everyone raised their glasses to him. His face was beaming and bright and full of life. He wore his festive crown tonight, made of large, perfectly arranged leaves, the sapphire in its center twinkling with a thousand reflections of both the disco lights and the stars that twinkled down at him from above. His fur was brushed so smoothly it seemed to shine in silky silver, not a hair out of place, the ringed tail all fluffy and adorable.

He was the youngest one of them.

And the sweetest.

He was tall, slender, attractive, and simply the sexiest lemur of all, like he'd been even back then in the huge pack in Madagascar. He was much younger than Maurice, and sometimes the royal advisor wondered if Julien was really aware of the fact that Maurice wasn't possibly the only one noticing this – of the impression he left on others. How he swayed his hips with both arms raised up high, palms to the universe, tips of his paws ready to touch the stars! When he smiled, the beauty of the entire night world reflected in his eyes. How he then did a body wave through his tail, paws folded under his chin, looking coquettishly over his shoulder – he didn't only have the ladies' attention, but downright _everyone's._

When he danced he seemed to embody sensuality in all its magnificence. He mesmerized his spectators, no matter what species or gender they were, by simply enjoying himself, indulging in the splendor of his own body and mind. He totally abandoned himself to his dance until he became one with the music, body and soul reunited in light and sound and passion. There was a certain sparkling quality he possessed, a magnetic charisma radiating from his inside out, which Maurice tried to put in words when he said Julien had got 'that light'.

Dancing was his one true element. Even the penguins seemed to notice that.

"Gosh, Julien looks gorgeous tonight" Private said, "And he really seems to have fun. I think it was a good thing we brought him here."

"Ringtail and Hoboken? Actually, why not" Skipper commented sarcastically, "That fits."

"The place is safe, Skipper" Kowalski reported, wearing his headphones with the tracking device, "I checked on all the cameras." He and Rico had returned from their missions in the meantime. Rico made a deep-throated, affirming sound.

"What? You seriously didn't find _no one _armed here?!" Skipper could hardly believe it. It required all his men's powers of persuasion to make him do so eventually.

"Alright, lemur delivered, place checked, job done" Kowalski closed the case, "Could we go back now watching the rest of the game? Rico won't shut up about it!"

"Yoopie-yay-yay NCAA!" Rico growled, hopping up and down.

Skipper cast one last look down on the dance floor. "Agreed. In that case… let's move out."

On Skipper's command the team belly-slid back to the car, Mort running after them.

"I don't know…"

Maurice left last, looking back over his shoulder once again, just to see Julien now dancing closely with a certain red lemur. It was Clemson, the trickster who had been trying twice to take over Julien's throne. However, the two of them must have settled their differences, as they were now dancing face to face, Clemson's arm wrapped around Julien's waist.

"Move it, gray lemur" Skipper grumbled impatiently, and Rico gunned the engine.

Maurice shrugged, then turned away and took his seat.

* * *

><p>"Guess what Maurice, this was so great, it was the greatiest party I've ever had in my entire life, it was so extremely super delightful I can't even tell you!"<p>

Julien came back Saturday morning at five, a radiant smile across his face and just as energetic as he had been when he had left.

"All the night we played dart, ping pong, pool and whatnot, and we had such delicious cake, and ice-cream too, and cupcakes, candy, brownies, chips, poppity corn and this thing they are calling Chex mix…"

He went on about it. Maurice did not even bother to ask if he had found out why there had not been an actual meeting before the party. He just asked, "So I guess this means you're planning to go there again?"

"Yes."

"Every Friday from here to Hoboken?"

"Yeeeees, of course! There is no way I can be missing a party like this!"

Maurice sighed. "Okay, in that case let's start collecting subway tokens."

* * *

><p>From this time on, Maurice had his Friday nights off.<p>

He couldn't say he was unhappy about it. Once he and Mort had said goodbye to their ever so festively-clad king, he would send Mort to sleep and then spend the rest of his evening with anything else than wild parties. At the penguin habitat he was always a welcomed guest; he enjoyed playing chess with Kowalski, painting portraits with Rico, getting into deep political discussions with Skipper or watching the Lunacorns with Private.

Many a night, of course, he would also join the commando team on their missions again, like he had done before.

"I'm not coming back until Monday" King Julien announced next Friday afternoon before leaving the habitat. This didn't sound too bad at all to Maurice: a whole weekend without any annoying royal duties!

"Alright Your Highness, just take your time. – But hey, you seriously wanna party more than 48 hours?!"

"Why not? Besides, Clemson is having a habitat there. He said he is letting me sleep over."

"I see." Maurice went on cleaning the smoothie maker but then looked up again at his king.

"Your Majesty… Julien, you do remember he tried twice to overthrow you and claim your royal crown for himself, don't you? He might seem kind to you know but after all I guess you better look out a little what he's about this time…" _You mustn't be naïve, you know _he wanted to add but kept it to himself, not to make Julien angry.

"Come on, Maurice, this is long gone" Julien replied with a carefree smile, ever so busy staring admiringly at himself in his tiny pink handheld mirror, "This Clemson is a cool guy. He really got the groove. Besides, we are not talking about political issues such as being king when we're there."

"Whatever you say" the advisor replied, hesitating.


	4. Chapter 3 - Bad Romance

CHAPTER 3

**BAD ROMANCE**

Almost everyone had already left by now or hung around dead drunk in some corner of the Hoboken zoo. Julien and Clemson were the very last ones on the dance floor.

"Maybe we should give it a rest" Clemson said when the current song came to an end, "You wanna see my cave?"

"Oh, sure!" Julien did one last body wave failing to impress, as meanwhile he was so drunken he could barely dance or even walk in a straight line. Clemson offered one more drink to Hans, who was the DJ tonight, and then they left.

Clemson's habitat was slightly away from the others at the North end of the zoo. His cave was a small hollow rock which was roomier than it looked. Its inside was a shambles of empty cans, leaves, toys, plushies, lots of different items from the Hoboken zoo souvenir shop, as well as a surprising amount of tools and small equipment. The entire inside was but dimly lit. Clemson let the king enter first and then pulled the curtain closed behind them.

"That's my place. I'm sorry it's a bit untidy…"

"I love it!" Julien stated, diving into the mess until he found a great game table that fascinated him, "Oh, you even have billiards here!" He grabbed a cue but drunken as he was it slipped from his hands and dropped on the floor. And as they both reached out for it, their paws touched. Clemson took Julien's paw into his and held it.

"Thank you for this lovely evening" he said, "You're an outstanding dancer. Thanks to you, I enjoyed it more than I could have ever imagined… and I still do."

With these words Clemson lifted him on the billiards table in a way that Julien's legs were wrapped around his hips. His paws on Julien's back held them close to each other, Clemson's face only inches away from the lemur king's. There was something behind Clemson's grin. Julien closed his eyes tight, feeling what the other would do to him… but it felt anything else than pleasant. "What the –."

"Shsh." Clemson gently put one paw against Julien's neck. In a second, his lips were crushing against Julien's in a forceful kiss.

The lemur king winced and eventually managed to push the other one away.

"But what are you –! No, do not be doing that!"

Julien tried to free himself from Clemson's grip but the other lemur was much stronger. He felt Clemson's paws grab his shoulders, and then roughly push him back down on the billiards table. Pain shot up his back and he yelled. Towering above him, Clemson gripped Julien's paws and held them tightly over his head.

"No, no, no; we're not done yet. Let's continue." – His lips found Julien's again, and he deepened the kiss, muffling Julien's scream. – _Enjoy _it."

Clemson's voice held immense glee. He melted with desire and became totally lost in it. His paw crept down further, stroking Julien's chest and then way on and all over his booty which wasn't meant to be touched by that lemur, not at all.

"You have a lovely tail… perfect size. Brilliant."

"Do not… touch me" the lemur king stammered deeply confused, in his shock and drunkenness still needing time to understand what was actually happening to him; anything he knew and felt right now was Clemson _cross the line of his personal space_.

"Why not? Come on, try this with me" Clemson whispered, taking Julien's paw and placing it on his thigh, "It's cool." He gazed into Julien's hazel eyes, running his fingers through his silky grey fur. But Julien shook at the lustrous glare the red lemur gave him.

"It's not cool to me" he tried to explain, "I don't love you… in _this_ way."

"Are you sure?" Clemson went on to touch him as if to massage him. "You know, last time I did this back in Central Park, you liked it a lot…" Then he bowed down, his tongue trailing over Julien's neck in a slow line. He moved his lips over to his ear, his breath hot on Julien's skin, and kept on kissing the back of his neck while he slowly unwrapped the leaves around his waist. Julien held his breath when he did so, his heart speeding up with terror.

"No, no! I am not liking this at all. You're sick, you're sick, you're sick!"

He wriggled himself free, but Clemson smashed him back down so hard he was lying flat on the cold hard table, this time on his stomach with his arms stretched widely. Clemson grabbed him by his wrists from behind. Then, his smirk growing wider, he clenched his fangs into the soft flesh of Julien's neck.

Julien screamed. His fingers cramped into fists as a wave of pain shook his body. Clemson moaned with joy on feeling him twitch beneath him. Warm blood gushed from the wound, stickily drenching the king's silver fur until it was sodden all red. Clemson clutched paws full of it, holding Julien tight who writhed under him.

"Don't worry; you'll learn to enjoy it."

The red lemur spread his claws. His eyes swimming in arousal, he ran them across Julien's back. The lemur king let out a long yell of grief as Clemson's claws tore through skin, pierced through flesh with ease.

"N-no… please don't! Please… it hurts…"

The pain made Julien shake all over. As soon as he had twisted it free, his paw flew to the wound; he felt blood ooze from the slice. The red lemur watched this with shining eyes, a wicked laugh escaping from his lips.

"You know you're so hot when you're begging."

He could feel Julien's resistance faint. The lemur king lay barely moving, panting tightly through clenched teeth, his chest heaving with shaky breaths. Clemson allowed him to turn around and face him.

"It hurts… this hurts so bad! This is not what I want. Please, understand. Please let me go…" Tears poured down Julien's cheeks now. "Why are you doing this to me?"

There, the red lemur's maniacal laugher died. His face was ugly now, an expression of hatred twisting it into a scary mask. "We have some unfinished business" he said, "Remember?"

"You… you talk about you wanting to be the lemur king in my place?"

"Exactly. Contrary to anything you and your lemurs might think, I haven't given up on this dream yet; I've never had. Not after you sent me away to this zoo here. Neither after you and your friends tricked me with that mind-switcher. This has always been my dream, and there's only one other thing which has grown equally strong in me: my wish for revenge on you. – So, at least one of those two I'm going to fulfill at all costs; the choice is yours. "

He put his paw to Julien's cheek, just touching the light fur with his fingertips before the king pushed him away.

"We can go back to Central Park where you officially declare you're going to step down in favour of me, the one and only future lemur king. – Or, you will just go and tell your pals how much you liked it here with me and how urgently you want to come back to me _voluntarily_ every Friday night to party with me and…"

"And do gruesome things with you?!"

Pressing a paw on his sore flank, Julien struggled to get some distance between himself and the other lemur. He tried to get off the billiards table but injured as he was, he ended up falling from it and landed badly.

"What are you thinking? Be there party as it may – this is the first and last time you been doing this! I'm not coming back to you ever, _ever_ again! And neither will you be the lemur king; I'm telling the penguins everything about you, and then you'll be sorry!"

He raised an angry fist against Clemson who was still sitting on the billiards table smiling down at him. "Oh, I wouldn't do that if I were you" he calmly advised, "no one must ever know about my _sweet, sweet revenge_ on you. – If you tell anyone what we've been doing here, it's you who's going to regret it!" He jumped off the table beside Julien and roughly grabbed him by his chest fur. When he spoke again his voice was low and threatening.

"You worthless fool a lemur! – I said I leave you only two options to choose: crown me king or keep your kingdom by serving me! There's no other way, so don't try to look for one. If you tell anyone of your zoo mates about these plans, I promise I'll come and invade Manhattan before you know it, and when their habitats are destroyed I'll let them know whose choice it could have been to prevent this! I swear you Julien, if you try to betray me, I'll shoot the tiny one dead in front of your eyes, I'll take your right hand man hostage and kill him slowly, painfully, and before the final blow I'll let him wake up again just long enough to remind him who is to blame for his torment – you and only _you_."

– He paused to see Julien stare at him in both horror and disbelief, then tossed his head back and gave a hearty, scornful laugh. – "Think again. You don't want to burden yourself with so much guilt, do you."

Guessing in what kind of twisted dilemma he was about to run, Julien gathered the very rest of his forces and pushed the other lemur aside and leapt as far away from him as he could.

"You're lying! You're just a liar and a dirty pretender; you cannot be threatening me like this! If I go away and tell everyone, what will you do against it – how could you ever invade our zoo just like that? How could you be stronger than me, my lemurs, and the penguins?"

"You'll be surprised" the red lemur returned with a smirk, "You know there are just some things in life you can't ever forget. Like when you're chased away by two gorillas hot on your heels, like I was when we met last. In moments like this you learn how important it is to protect yourself against animals twice your size and four times your strength… And you can bet I made it. If you risk it, Julie, I'll prove you I'm now powerful enough to confront a whole zoo!"

He burst into his ever so maniacal laughter, suddenly holding a remote in his paws.

Julien stared towards the sinister back part of the cave, his eyes filling with inexplicable fear. Something came to life at the opposite wall, a shadow moving across the ground and approaching him. The sounds of static filled the air, sending a shiver down his spine.

Then, a pair of glowing red eyes – empty, lifeless voids – stared at him from the pitch-black darkness.

"_Hi_." It was more a buzzing sound than a voice. "_I know kung fu!_"


	5. Chapter 4 - Promise Me

CHAPTER 4

**PROMISE ME**

_A zombie._

This was the first thing that came to Julien's mind when he observed the creature more closely: Clemson's evil spirit must be so vast he had been able to divide it and use a part of it to inspirit this unnatural creature.

And terror had yet no end: there were more of the monsters – Julien could see them when Clemson made them light their eyes –; they were motionlessly resting at the dark back of the cave, watching them with sharp, never-changing grins carved into their faces.

How much evil the red lemur must bear in his spirit…!

Clemson could make them move with the remote he always carried with himself or even with the mere sound of his voice. They were his zombies; as a sign of their devotion they all had his physical appearance: slender red lemurs at a first glance, but their pupilless glowing eyes that dimmed to nothing when they were shut down and reilluminated when they were sent to action proved these creatures were anything but animals.

"Impressive, aren't they." Clemson's face beamed with pride. "This is how I rebuilt them, after your friends, the penguins, destroyed them. They're under my command now; I'm their new maker. They're my army. And they obey me submissively; anything I demand from them they will carry out right away. – Let me show you."

He pulled up a box from beneath the bed and dropped it again on the floor, causing it to split open. Various stuffed animals in shape and size of the Central Park Zoo residents spilled everywhere.

"Look what I've found today in our zoo's souvenir shop: a faulty delivery. This plushie box should have probably been delivered to your zoo."

And he took up a Mort doll and threw it to one of the creatures.

The doll landed at its feet – and from the tips of the creature's paw a series of tiny, highly explosive bullets slammed into it. Julien screamed as the burst discharged with the sound of a firework rocket. Smoke began filling the cave.

Small flames dying out at its paw tips, the creature took up the Mort doll it had just shot. Its fur was almost entirely burnt, the fine fabric torn, its limbs ripped apart. Its polystyrene innards welled forth and lay scattered across the floor. Then the creature lifted the doll's head off the ground, gouged out its eyes and ripped off its ears.

"Now what do you say?" Clemson asked his involuntary guest, "They'll sure do a number on your lemurs, don't you think? That's just an approximate demonstration of what it'll look like after they get an 88-cent nuclear atomic 5000-megaton blaster to their heads. What's your guess? Huh? You think they'll survive this? Fine, in that case just go home and don't ever come back."

He smiled at the horror-stricken look upon Julien's face.

"Oh, and my servants can actually do much more than this, you know, just in case you'd like to see something really interesting. They know smashing, sawing, axing, chomping with claws and spill hot molten metal…"

With these words Clemson grabbed into the box again and pulled out a Maurice doll.

The creature aimed again, shot off the doll's right arm and then took it up to pluck its tail.

"Oh look, this must really make your right hand man suffer" Clemson commented, "How rude of me! Well, a quick beheading will end his pain…"

"No! _Stop this!_" Julien cried, "Please, be making it end!" His knees bent underneath him, and he fell to Clemson's feet with a ragged sob. "How can you?! How can you even think of doing such horrible, horrible things?"

Clemson just laughed, his eyes wild and glazing over with feverish greed for power. Yet he answered with a voice so calm one would not even guess a spark of madness hiding inside him, "I told you it's my greatest dream. I want to be king at all costs, that's all. The ones with me will be amply rewarded. The ones against me… Well, you just witnessed what they deserve."

"This is _not _what it's like being a king."

Clemson shrugged. "It's all that matters to me. As a king you can do anything you want with your servants. – But you may have a different opinion about this, I see. So I ask you again: What are you going to do? Are you going to protect your lemurs… and the rest of your zoo?"

Julien lowered his gaze. His lips quivered before he answered in a sob.

"I… I will do as you say…"

"So you will come to see me again."

"Yes."

"And not tell a thing about us to anyone."

"No."

Clemson got close to him again and dragged him to the ground. Towering above him, he began caressing Julien's slender, delicate body with his paws again. His green eyes were sparkling with lust for grief and destruction as he looked down on his victim.

"You won't?"

"No, I will not."

"Do you promise?"

Julien sobbed.

"I said _do you promise, _you sore, worthless fool of a lemur?" Clemson moved forward, grabbing the lemur king's paws with an iron tight grip. He earned a soft whimper of pain.

"I… I promise."

"Good." He smiled, praisingly caressing Julien's fur. "Very good! – I believe you'll keep your word. Still, I need to test your honesty."

Julien looked up at him aghast, expecting more torture. Clemson calmingly wiped the tears from his cheek. "Don't worry, dear, don't worry. All I'm going to do is accompanying you home tomorrow. And once we get to meet your people you better make sure the two of us look utterly, hopelessly, head-over-heelishly in love!"

He bent down to kiss Julien's neck, nibble his ear, and then engaged him in deep wet kisses while stroking his lower back and weaving his fingers into his hair. Carefully he let his paws run down the sides of Julien's neck… and then closed his fingers around it.

"Understood?"

Julien gasped for breath. Unable to express a word, he nodded with his eyes tightly closed.

"Very good" the red lemur repeated as he pulled him close again, and Clemson's moans and Julien's muffled screams filled the night, while outside a crowd of ignorant animals were having an after-show party.

* * *

><p>The following Monday morning King Julien returned to Central Park.<p>

Maurice woke up when he felt Julien climb on the bouncy house next to him and Mort. He hoped very much that Julien would not throw them out of bed by starting to bounce right away and turn up the boomy box at full volume, eager to continue yesterday night's party, like he had done it some times before. However, he soon saw there was no need for worries; Julien looked anything else than in a party mood. His crown was crooked, the flamingo feathers ragged and his festive makeup was smudged in long black streaks down his face which had taken on an extremely weary, almost jaded look.

"Good morning, Your Majesty." Maurice wiped the sleep out of his eyes. "You had a nice party?"

Julien looked at him in silence for a minute; then he nodded and murmured, "It was okay."

That sounded way less enthusiastic than usual. _Okay. _When had a party ever been only _okay _to Julien? "Is everything alright?" the advisor asked again.

"Yes, yes. It was just being a bit… exhausting."

Julien curled his tail around himself and turned away from him. Maurice watched how he then hugged Mort very carefully, pulled him close and held him to his chest with the utmost of tenderness as if he wanted to protect the small mouse lemur from any evil in the world. Maurice rubbed his eyes and looked again. Julien was now caressing Mort's tail, still holding him close, making the little lemur smile in his sleep.

This had never happened before.

Maurice kept watching this for a while. Then shrugged and went back to sleep.


	6. Chapter 5 - A Leading Lemur

CHAPTER 5

**A LEADING LEMUR**

Maurice and Mort experienced the surprise of their lives when they saw who came to visit their habitat next morning.

"EVIL!" Mort wailed loudly.

It was very early and the zoo hadn't opened its doors to any visitors yet, so the animals had some time left to spend among each other. Most of them weren't quite active yet; however, the penguin team was naturally up already doing military morning workout.

When they heard Mort's cry and saw who had arrived, Skipper commanded his boys over to the lemur habitat.

King Julien and Clemson stood by the habitat door side by side.

The two lemurs were holding each other's paws.

Maurice was about to welcome them when Skipper belly-slid between him and the door and held the bolt shot with his flipper.

"You better don't be all dewy-eyed, gray lemur. – What do you want here this time, stranger?" he called to Clemson over the wall, "You've come to present any nasty compliments from the Hoboken Hell?!"

"By no means" a soft voice replied, "Your king didn't feel too good this morning, so I decided to accompany him in order to make sure he would get home safely."

Skipper shared a surprised look with his men. Kowalski shrugged, and then gave him a nod. Skipper stepped aside and Maurice released the bolt.

Julien let go of Clemson's paw and quickly came in whereas Clemson reticently, almost shyly remained in the doorway. Julien leapt behind his advisor's back where he curled himself up into a mute, furry ball. When Mort ran to him to hug his feet, he wouldn't even bother so much about it as to push him away.

"Julien! What happened?!"

Maurice took the king by his shoulders. Julien looked up to him, his eyes growing glassy.

"I'm… being very alright" he vaguely replied, "I guess we were just… shaking our booties a little too wildily last night, and… thanks to Clemson who was bringing me back I'm being very alright now."

"...Yeah, so I see." It wasn't hard to see Maurice didn't believe much of it.

"Cordial thanks, foreign lemur" Skipper grimly said to Clemson, his flipper on the bolt again, "Now if you don't mind –."

"No, wait."

Maurice felt that no matter what was wrong with Julien, he had to give credit to Clemson for caring about his king. After all, going all the way with him couldn't be taken for granted, and even here Clemson was apparently willed to show some respect: he wouldn't move an inch into the lemur habitat until Maurice asked him in.

"In the name of my king I'd like to thank you for your support."

Clemson inclined his head. "Oh please, it was the least I could do."

"So if you'd like to, why don't you come in for a second… and tell us a little about the meeting?"

"Thank you, this is very kind of you."

Skipper looked at Maurice as if the older lemur had lost his mind. The other penguins didn't seem to think of this as a good idea either – except from Private who, always polite and ready to believe in the good in animals, believed that inviting Clemson now was the least of courtesy.

However, when a little later they were all reassembled in the Lemur Café drinking smoothies and tea Private's Uncle Nigel had brought along from England, the others soon had to admit they'd had worse guests than Clemson.

At the table he was sitting next to Julien, the red lemur affable and talkative, the silver one quiet and with barely a word to say.

Every once in a while, Skipper lightly slapped Private's cheek in order to remind him not to gape so insultingly at the two of them holding each other's paws.

"Apart from your boozy session back there in Hoboken, how were the royal meetings? What were you zoo bosses discussing lately?" he then asked the red lemur challengingly, "I mean, if you actually _did_ discuss anything apart from catwalk modeling and getting new batteries for your noise makers…"

Clemson took a sip from his cup before he explained, "Yesterday night we discussed the distribution of zoological care for animals worldwide in a geographical and juridical point of view. Yet I fear the meeting was unproductive. We from Hoboken brought what we had to the table but the koala king of the Delaware zoo was unwilling to deal. I suspect they thought our offer wasn't in earnest. Luckily next Friday the leader of the Charleston zoo in West Virginia will provide us more support."

Silence ensued.

"Oh." Skipper blinked. "I see." He cleared his throat. "Er… Good luck then."

"Thank you. We shall see what we can do then in order to elaborate on our position."

The penguin team and Maurice shared a look in silence.

This was only the first of many examples Clemson would deliver them in the following hour to take them by surprise.

It seemed as if they'd never truly known him.

It was both his physical appearance and demeanor which everyone was pleasantly amazed by: unlike Julien who was having his breakfast smoothie here dressed in last night's party leaves and looked downright as if he'd danced a whole long sweaty night like there was no tomorrow, Clemson seemed wide awake and receptive. His fur was finely brushed but not overly shiny; the strong contrast of its color revealed he was still quite young, yet his manners were those of a perfect gentleman.

He helped Maurice make more smoothies for the group although he was their guest. He asked everyone what they would like to drink and walked around serving the cookie plate. When Marlene dropped by for a visit around noon he got up and offered her his seat.

In discussion he was a pleasant conversationalist present to everyone but never too importunate or obsequious, like he'd acted when he'd come to their zoo for the first time; he was well-behaved, attentive and showed noticeable and sincere interest in everyone's topics, especially in Kowalski's, to everyone's surprise.

"…And right after I very carefully separated the red and green wires from their sheathing, I reversed their polarity, then spliced both into the ground lead, and what did I get? Blue potassium! _Blue!_" Once again Kowalski got bogged down in the details of his own genius.

"_Blue_, imagine that! This shouldn't technically be even possible at a capacity factor of more than 80%."

He didn't notice no one else was following until his leader moaned loudly in annoyance.

"Oh, er… am I going too fast for you?" he bashfully asked, "You know, capacity factor…?"

"Oh, certainly." Everyone's heads turned to face Clemson. "A universal standard for measuring power plant performance, comparing a plant's actual output with its maximum potential output, expressed as a percentage. Right?"

The tall penguin looked at him, taken aback.

"Finally, someone who speaks English!" he delightedly exclaimed.

"About that, I do have a question or two, if you don't mind" Clemson added, followed by a combination of words no one but Kowalski had the slightest clue about. The two of them continued exchanging a number of scientific terms. Clemson listened to the penguin's words with ardor, his eyes bright and glowing and filled with thirst for knowledge; there was no way he was pretending.

"Sorry, I didn't mean to be bragging or rude" he said with a bashful smile when he realized after a while that nobody around the table was talking anymore but him and Kowalski, "It's just that tinkering has lately become my new hobby."

Nobody resented him.

No trace of the psychopathic, power-hungry behavior they'd known from him seemed to be left in him now. All he seemed to have turned into was a well-mannered and considerate young lemur with high standards of proper behavior.

In the end he didn't leave until he had firmly shaken everyone's paws and flippers; first Maurice's, then Skipper's, Kowalski's, Rico's, Private's and finally little Mort's, who even received an icy pop from him. He kissed Julien goodbye who whispered a faint 'yes, I love you, too' in return and as he walked away everyone waved farewell joyously.

Everyone was thoroughly, pleasantly surprised and enchanted.

Everyone but the lemur they all believed to have enjoyed the visit most of all.

"Clemson sure seems to have changed a lot" Private happily said when the penguins were waddling home to their habitat.

"Indeed. Especially his progress in scientific knowledge is astounding" Kowalski agreed, and Rico nodded, too. "What do you think, Skipper?"

"I don't know…" Strangely enough, their leader seemed totally lost in his thoughts. He cast a look back at the lemur habitat where Mort and Maurice tried in vain to animate Julien to go bouncing with them; right after Clemson had left the lemur king had withdrawn into a lonely corner behind the smoothie bar.

"Meeting him made my gut ache. You know what that means."


	7. Chapter 6 - Just Dance

CHAPTER 6

**JUST DANCE**

Maurice stood there watching King Julien from behind the bouncy house.

The dawn was already falling; like the previous Friday nights his king was now supposed to get ready to party hard. However, Julien seemed to be in any mood but a festive one; he was dawdling about, rearranging the leaves around his waist, putting his festive crown on and off again and brushing his fur for the tenth time. It almost seemed as if he wanted to stall for time. This seemed particularly odd to the advisor as he could not think of _any _occasion to party Julien would ever miss. He looked over to the penguin habitat where the strike team was already assembled around the fish bowl waiting for him to come over after he had said goodbye to his king.

"Your Majesty, are you ready?" he called over to Julien, "You know the subway doesn't wait."

The lemur king was about to brush his bushy tail once again; at the sound his advisor's voice he winced, the comb slipping from his hand. Maurice noticed this with confusion.

"Yes, Maurice…" Julien came stumbling down the stone platforms where his throne was located on, his chest fur still uncombed and his crown placed rather oblique on his head this time; however this did almost no harm to his ravishing beauty. Maurice didn't fail to notice that he seemed nervous, downright overanxious.

"Are you alright, Your Highness?" he asked as they walked over to the penguin habitat.

Julien avoided his look. "Yes, yes, Maurice… It's just that I'll have to stay until Monday again and…" His voice trailed off.

"You have to?" Maurice asked, "Who said that? You can just leave there anytime if you don't feel like partying anymore."

Julien bit his lips. "Well, I…"

Just then Skipper's head popped up from under the fish bowl.

"You're late, Ringtail!" he muttered with his flippers akimbo, "Move your fancy butt outta here so your right hand man can enjoy his well-deserved free evening. Thanks to your dilly-dallying we'll miss the show!"

"Well, of course the king is needing time to get in proper royal shape" Julien opposed.

Skipper just put him off. "Whatever. Shirtless Ninja Action Theater is going to start in two minutes fifteen and I'm not going to miss it, no matter if you're finally dolled up enough for your boozy party or not."

He disappeared beneath the fish bowl, and then looked back up once again. "Oh, and try to actually represent our zoo a bit, not only yourself, okay? Just do things a little like that other lemur, won't you. If you managed to negotiate at least halfway as well as he obviously does, the rest of our zoo would already be perfectly happy with your public image."

"A king always knows how to be representing his kingdom" Julien answered but this time sounded half as perky and overconfident as he usually did.

* * *

><p><em>"Day-na-day-na, I wanna be loved<em>

_Day-na, I'm gonna take my wild chances_

_Day-na-day-na, freedom above_

_Day-na-da-na-da, I'm wild 'n' dancing!"_

"You want to be loved. You sing it yourself when you're out there on stage with me" a soft and familiar, yet deeply frightening voice purred in his ear as two strong arms wrapped tightly around his body from behind.

It was Saturday evening, 10 p.m. The two lemurs were sitting in Clemson's cave; the red lemur was about to prepare his involuntary guest for another show. Outside the music was playing already at full volume. They could hear the party mix echo dully through the cave walls.

"This is not love" Julien whispered, the feeling of Clemson's breath upon his neck making him shiver with terror.

"Of course it is; what else? I love you, Julien. I love you being here at night, dancing for me and drinking red vine with me in my chamber and…"

"Love is when both are wanting it" Julien replied harshly, trying in vain to shake off the other one's desiring paws, "And I am not wanting to be with you!"

"There's no way out for you", Clemson reminded him, "But don't worry. Eventually you will accept it and even want it."

"No. I am wanting to go home." New tears welled up in the lemur king's eyes, and he covered his face and turned away when Clemson tried to caress his cheeks and neck.

"Come on, don't be so stubborn, lovely Lemur Lord…"

"No. No!"

Clemson's paws violently grabbed him, and Julien ducked for shelter, sobs shaking him.

"Stop crying now." Clemson forcibly pulled Julien's paws from his face, making him look up at him. How he loved the sight of Julien so vulnerable and humiliated in front of him like that, his eyes filled with fear and his soft cheek fur wet with burning tears.

"I am wanting to be home… with Maurice and the penguins…"

"Stop crying!" Clemson's paw smacked against Julien's cheek, leaving a red spot beneath the fur. "I can't do your makeup like that!"

Scared to be punished worse if he disobeyed, Julien gulped down his despair and apathetically submitted to everything Clemson was going to do with him. He allowed him to groom his tail to perfect fluffiness and rub coconut milk and guava berry juice into his fur until it was all shiny. Then Clemson would dress him over and over in flamingo feathers and gorgeous leaves amplifying his waist line, around his hips a thin ribbon of black lace bright red gems had been sewn on. Then the red lemur gently combed his fingers through Julien's fur until it fell in soft waves around his face. His cheeks were pale but Clemson powdered them, making the color of his fur seem bolder. The disguise worked out fine: after all Julien looked more attractive and party-ready than ever before.

Finally, with an immortal smile painted across the lemur king's face, the expression of liveliness was perfectly faked.

* * *

><p>The two following Fridays King Julien would completely miss the Hoboken parties.<p>

He told no one a reason why.

He just stayed at the lemur habitat, enjoying the weekend with his two commoners to whom he was noticeably nicer than usual. Although (strangely enough to Maurice) they never had any of their lemur parties, they played for days; the two elder tried to teach Mort to play Pairs, and when they failed they went swimming, bouncing, or playing hide and seek. The penguins were on a mission for a few days and no one else dropped by to visit them. The three of them were on their own and perfectly fine with it; their tiny population could not have lived more peacefully than these days.

However, there were shadows behind the light.

When his king lay in front of him on the massage table Maurice was able to take a closer look at Julien's body. He did not like at all what he saw: the king's chest was littered with scratches and bruises; there were red marks on his neck and thighs which without the shadow of a doubt were bite injuries. His once fluffy tail was a ruffled mess, parts of his fur were completely missing on his back, revealing reddened skin beneath; it had been apparently ripped out.

He had barely begun the massage for a minute when Julien got up from the table quickly, wrapping himself in some leaves.

"Ok, thank you Maurice. Let's go… be doing something else now."

"But Your Highness…"

"No, no; let's go teach Mort swimming now."

"…Julien, what's happened to you?! Look at you; what a sight you are! You look like you've messed with the gorillas!"

"Oh, I was" his king immediately responded with faked pride.

"Oh yeah?"

"Yeah. Like, yesterday. No, the yesterday before yesterday. You know… They were refusing to give me bananas, so I teached them a lesson."

"Oh really. I would have almost believed that… Except from the fact that Bada and Bing are currently at the vet's. As in-patients. The whole week."

"Oh right, I got this wrong: naturally, I was meaning the chimpanzees…"

"…Who are currently on vacation in Miami."

"Okay, you got me!" Julien pouted. He wrapped himself a little tighter in his leaves and looked away, reflected for a minute, and then said, "It was… the subway."

Maurice blinked. "Say what?"

"You know, the last time on my way home from Hoboken I have been getting sticked between the metal doors because I went in there too late. And when I was getting out, a mob of dense humans was trampling over me."

"Uh-huh." Maurice placed his paws to his stout hips and added, "You don't really expect me to believe this? Look, I just want to know what –."

"OH, MORT!" Julien threw his leaves off and quickly hopped away from him. "C'mon, let's be playing tag!"

"Yeeeees! I like playing tag!"

Maurice shook his head as he watched the two younger lemurs leap up in the trees. He felt Julien was hiding something from him. This had never happened between them ever before; there had always been this unspoken mutual trust between the two of them on which both could rely no matter what. It was the first time in his life Maurice felt that something – or _someone_ – was causing it to breach, and he did not like this at all.

Right now he seemed delightfully happy but there had been enough time these days Julien's condition had been anything else but normal. He had obvious difficulties doing the smallest everyday works and concentrate on the simplest things. Very often he would seem mentally absent or totally lost in daydreams. His brazen, self-publicizing attitude had changed into an excessively withdrawn, almost fearful behavior towards others. He often seemed overly sensitive, feeling sore about bagatelles and downright anxious about doing anything wrong. And whenever he was alone he seemed watchful as if expecting something bad to happen.

Almost every other day he complained about headache and nausea. Like right then when Maurice had tried to massage him, he shied away from any kind of touch.

All in all Julien seemed powerless, despondent, as if he feared every morning anew how to endure the following day, and if not for Mort and him, Maurice, he wouldn't probably bother about getting out of bed at all.

However, the nights seemed to bother him even more.

The night had always been his favorite time of day.

He had always loved to dance, to watch the stars, go night hiking in the park with him when Mort was sleeping, and then they would sit in the woods for hours beneath a dark tree, huddled up to one another and telling each other spooky stories of undead spiders and zombie chicken… But all of a sudden he seemed to fear lightless places.

And – what was most disturbing– when dusk was approaching he didn't like to dance anymore. There had been days when he could barely wait for Alice to announce the zoo was now closing and with the last stroke of the clock-tower bell he could finally turn up the music.

Now, as soon as the sun began to set, he would order everyone to go to sleep.

This was something Maurice couldn't understand at all. He had known Julien for so long; he knew his heart had a party pulse. Dancing and singing was all he was living for. No one could boogie-oogie-oogie like him, not even the baboons.

What could ever take this passion away from him?

And after all this, Julien still announced the upcoming Friday he would go to Hoboken again anyway. Hardly anybody could ever make Julien do things he did not want, and if there was something he did not want, he wouldn't hush about it. This was what struck Maurice most of all: although there was definitely something wrong happening to him in Hoboken, it seemed no question to him he would go.

To experience more things he wouldn't tell Maurice anything about.

To get himself more bruises.

Thinking this over and over again, the royal advisor decided things were finally getting too far.

He could think of only one team of animals who had never failed to help before, no matter how strange the case was.

_Skipper and the guys._

* * *

><p><em><strong>AN:** _

_To my reviewers: Thank you so much for your kind words, they really melted my heart :)_

_This site is a mess! I really have a hard time getting used to it, which bothers me because I'm usually good with new websites. It's not such a big thing but if anyone knows why it won't display asterisks in my text, please let me know._

_Ugh. I have a ton of exams coming up at college, I should really focus on studying instead of writing nasty stuff here. Ahem._


	8. Chapter 7 - Pink Blue

CHAPTER 7

**PINK BLUE**

After he'd reluctantly said goodbye to his king, Maurice walked over to the penguin HQ, ears drooping but his heart filled with hope.

Even though they were far from considering them agreeable neighbors, the penguins had helped them so many times before.

Although they made a secret about most of their missions, Maurice knew well what they were capable of. They could invade human homes and land crashing planes safely; they'd taken on rats, poisonous frogs, hungry boas, defeated evil scientists with lobster armies and mad human animal controllers, and even travelled to the moon. As long as they worked together, nothing could bring them down. If they were asked to, they could save the world.

And after all that, they wouldn't go to bed without having done a good deed every day.

Whatever threatened King Julien – if it was too big for anyone else to handle, for them it wouldn't be.

Still, Maurice wondered if it was the right decision to ask them about _this_ case.

Skipper was a stone-cold general.

Kowalski was a scientist.

Rico wasn't quite psychologically adept either.

And Private was minor.

Maurice decided to tell at least Skipper about it; how much the rest of the team got to know would be up to the leader. Despite his paranoia which showed up from time to time obviously and scared Maurice a little, the old lemur saw well that he could do the most incredible things, like getting a bunch of lovesick teenage beavers to work for him, mastering P.E.L.T., confronting mad animal control officers or megalomaniac dolphin scientists whose world conquest plans he easily spoiled, and he had proved to even have Santa magic coursing through his veins. Except for some rare cases he was pretty much fearless; this was what impressed Maurice most. Skipper was a role model of strength, courage, and stamina; and also sensibility, if he wasn't in a cranky mood.

He enjoyed playing with danger like others enjoyed their holiday.

Always standing tall. Never bending, never breaking, never backing down.

If there was anyone fit to help his king, it was him.

When Maurice came to their habitat the penguin team was working overtime.

The four of them stood in straight line, the three subordinated soldiers listening to their skipper's commandos before they executed them all in perfect unison.

"Kick! Punch! Chop! Mulch! Duck! Spin! Back-flip! Twirl! Bob and weave! Weave and bob! Plié! Punch! And kick! And... home time!" The rookery high-fived before they began tidying up their drill equipment. "Ah, Maurice!" the leader greeted the arriving lemur, "Just in time for Shirtless Ninja Action Theater!"

Maurice gave him a bashful smile. "Yeah, uh, could I… talk to you for a second?"

Skipper raised an eyebrow. "Sure." His face turned stern and serious again as he was resuming business. "Home time over, boys."

The three other penguins came running back to him.

Maurice moved a little closer to the leader. "Uh, I'm not sure they –."

But Skipper shook his head.

"I have no secrets in front of my brothers. Well, let's say almost none."

"I just mean…" He lowered his voice a little more and added, only for Skipper to hear, "This might be not suitable for his young ears."

Skipper blinked. Not many were able to surprise the leader of the penguin commando unit.

"Uh, Private?" he said aloud.

The youngest penguin smiled attentively at his leader. "Yes, Skipper?"

"My boy, do me a favor and turn the TV on already. We're coming in a second but we can't miss any important strike, so watch closely, okay?"

"Certainly, Sir."

Skipper looked at the lemur encouragingly after the rookie had left.

Maurice heaved a deep sigh. "It's Julien. I don't know what I'm gonna do with him!"

"Well now, that's something new." Skipper laughed ironically.

"No… I don't mean _that_."

And then he told them everything, everything. What Julien was like when he returned to them from Hoboken. How much he had changed; how all his life he had known Julien striding through the world in a confident, carefree and brash way, and how he had turned into the anxious, timid and absentminded being he was now. He told them about his fear of darkness and loud music, about their evasive dialogues and about the bruises.

The three penguins stood beside him, listening to him in silence; it was obvious that they were hardly able to guess what this was about.

"You know, when we throw him a party here, we keep it clean, with several fun activities to do" Maurice tried to express his suspicion, "We care about the attitude, you know. Since we have Mort around we mind the age limit anyways. We go bouncing, swimming, making music, playing party games, we're having snacks and smoothies. Non-alcoholic, of course. We keep our parties safe for everyone concerned. Nothing like… you know." Maurice looked sternly at the leader. "You know what I'm talking about, don't you?!"

Skipper blinked. Once, twice.

"Everyone's in peace with each other, everyone loves hanging around with each other. You know, like friends do. Innocent. _Non-lustful._"

"Non-… Oh, you mean –." Skipper put the tip of his flipper to his beak. "Oh."

Finally something like understanding flooded his gaze.

"Are we… talking about… well, abuse?" he asked with obvious uneasiness.

Maurice crossed his arms while inwardly rolling his eyes. "You're batting a thousand."

Silence followed. Rico had curiously followed the conversation, obviously without any clue what this was about, whereas Kowalski, flushing under his feathers all over, sat down on the fish bowl in deep confusion and didn't know what to say.

"Abuse? Oh. You mean… in _that _way. You mean Julien, he's – well, whenever he's in Hoboken, you mean –. Oh golly."

The three penguins hushed for some more embarrassed minutes. Maurice frowned. He wouldn't have believed them to be so uptight about this!

"Any suspects?" Skipper finally asked.

"Indeed. I'd bet my bottom dollar on Clemson!"

The three looked at each other.

Were they really talking about Clemson?

Their guest from a few weeks ago?

The red lemur with gentle manners, good humor and a remarkable stroke of ingenuity?

Then Skipper burst out the answer Maurice had wished for least of all.

"But that's completely ridiculous! Maurice, I'm actually shocked to find you so intolerant. There's nothing wrong with a male lemur having a boyfriend, nothing at all. Private's gonna learn that, too. Just because all of you oh so naturally expect to see the ringtail king side by side with a ringtail _queen_ –."

"No, no; it's not about that" Maurice quickly interrupted, "Not at all!"

"Considering this answer to be honest, I'd say this is all about jealousy then" Kowalski whispered into his leader's ear. Skipper nodded.

"Look, Maurice, I can imagine how you feel seeing the two of them together, really. But you mustn't hold it against neither of them, okay? Look, unlike you, Clemson is just rather Ringtail's age and –."

"You're getting this all completely wrong!" Frustrated, Maurice turned his back on them. "Look, if I knew Julien was truly happy with him, I'd be down on Clemson in no way, in no way at all, but I just feel he isn't and though I don't know what's really between them, I can tell you he's not feeling for Clemson what the guy is feeling for him, in fact I can tell you the guy is an utter threat to him! I feel… you know, this whole 'meeting-the-zoo-kings' thing has been changing Julien a lot. I feel I… I'm losing his trust… This has never been happening before and I don't like it, not at all. It's this red lemur who's gotten between the two of us!"

"Still sounds like jealousy" Kowalski muttered.

"If there was nothing wrong between those two, why would Julien be acting all gloomy then?" Maurice insisted, frowning at them.

Skipper just shrugged. "Ringtail's always been one moody monarch, hasn't he. Probably because he's been jerky again and now the others at the party don't pay attention to him anymore or something. – But I've got to admit you're indeed the one of us who knows Julien best. So, did he ever… tell you anything along these lines?"

"No, but –."

"There you go: you see he continues going there no matter what. If there was someone who was… doing these things to him, why would he ever do so, risking to see the guy again? I say he's just trying to get some attention by acting so sulkily. Just wait a while and he'll lose interest in those parties, and then Clemson as well is going to see what a buffoon he is actually dating and bingo, you'll have your old king back annoying you ever so regularly."

"You just don't understand…!" Maurice frantically raised his paws. "I've known Julien for so long and we've always trusted each other. He's my best friend. I feel he's in trouble with Clemson and I'm convinced that this one thing he's trying to hide from me is that this lemur –."

"Sorry, didn't Private just call me for something? Gosh, I think I left the Bunsen burner on in my lab! Sorry."

It was obvious that Kowalski couldn't take the topic anymore. Even though Maurice had known he wouldn't be familiar with this kind of problems, he would've expected him to act more level-headed. Rico shrugged as he left and then tagged along after him.

Maurice found himself alone with the leader.

Skipper watched him in silence for a while. Maurice saw there was much more going on behind his icy blue eyes than he would speak aloud.

"What is this all about?!" he confronted him, "You do know very well that you can trust me when it's about Julien, don't you. Then why do I have the feeling you're just downplaying the whole issue? You're not afraid to talk about such things, are you?"

"Afraid? _Me?_" Skipper's eyes alit in outrage. "Beware of how you speak to me, old lemur!"

"Oh yeah? Then why are you acting like this?"

"Listen, I'm not afraid of anything." Skipper turned to him, all of a sudden fuming with anger. "I'm just goddamn sick with Ringtail getting himself into trouble for the thousandth time, and I'm supposed to get him out again. Like when he thought he could fool around with that angry rhino. Or with our super toxic aromatically noxious mega bomb. Or even worse: when he stole Kowalski's invention and misused it for his own mad wishes, causing chaos with it which we had to fix in the end!"

"I know, I know. He really likes to mess with others from time to time but –."

"_From time to time?_ Some cheerful soul are you. I've always been wondering how you bear it with that guy for so long. But that's your own business."

He turned away again as if with these words the issue was settled to him.

"Please, Skipper…" Maurice begged him, his voice suddenly a little shaky, "It's about Hoboken; you guys are probably the only ones –."

"Well, this is exactly what I'm talking about!" The leader furiously clenched his flippers.

"– Don't say I didn't _warn_ him, Maurice. I told him how dangerous it was to embark on this whole thing but that Piña Colada Boy had to set my advice at nought once again in order to play dandy! And now I shall come running to save him, putting my men's lives at risk in that hellhole? Thank you very much! This time he's on his own. Look, I'm not trying to sound heartless here but if you ask me, your fine friend just gets what he deserves if –."

"Skipper!" An anxious cry interrupted them harshly. Private leapt topside again from beneath the fish bowl, carrying Kowalski's smartphone. "We have a 911 from Miami!"

Kowalski and Rico came running right after him and the whole rookery excitedly gathered around the youngest.

A variety of loud and nonmusical sounds emerged from the phone loudspeaker. The chimpanzees' faces showed up blurred on the display via video transfer. Phil wildly gestured at the penguins and Mason's translation almost got absorbed by the enormous noise level in the background.

"_Is that you, penguins? We're currently on our way back from Miami by rail_" Mason explained as calmly as he could, "_However, because of a technical malfunction we're –."  
>"HELP! THE TRAIN CAN'T BE STOPPED! WE'RE ALL GOING TO DIE!" <em>a human voice yelled in the background so piercingly the loudspeaker almost failed.

"Got it. – Rico, get the car! Kowalski, the first aid kit and four reflective vests! Private, turn the TV off! Maurice, we're talking later. – Hold on, chimpanzees, we're on our way!"

Ditched like this, Maurice stayed back without another word when the penguins dashed away in their pink toy car, engine screaming.

The gray lemur stared after them, left alone in the silent darkness.

They had been his only hope.

Slowly he turned away. When he made his way back home into the lemur habitat, his gaze flew over the empty throne, and tears slowly began running down his face.

_Julien…_


	9. Chapter 8 - All The Things He Said

CHAPTER 8

**ALL THE THINGS HE SAID**

It was just another sunny Saturday morning.  
>Clemson entered the cave and quietly sat down on the layered leaves that were his bed. He sighed a little when he noticed the muffled sobs from beneath the big banana leaf that was the blanket. Then he lifted the leaf a bit, speaking soft words to his weekend lover hiding under it.<p>

"You were beautiful."

Julien stared up at him in silent despair, his yellow eyes glowing faintly between his fingers that covered his tearful face. Clemson studied it with enchantment, his dark moist lashes fanning across his cheeks, his fur tangled across the pillow which Clemson's own paws had ruffled before in deep passion.

"And you will be again… tonight." The red lemur smiled at the thought. "After all we have to make up for the last two weeks you weren't here…"

"_No_."

This was new. His lips curling slightly in amusement, Clemson watched Julien gather the poor rest of his forces in order to contradict one more time, ever so sweet in his defenselessness, his expression one helpless plea.

Clemson leaned forward as if he hadn't heard.

"What did you say?"

"I WILL NOT BE DOING IT!" Despair choked his furious words, and tears ran down his cheeks. Julien pushed his paw off when Clemson tried to wipe them away.

"I want to go home…"

"You can go home on Monday."

"No.I can't take this any longer. I will be going home RIGHT NOW!"

Julien pushed the blanket away and leapt off the bed. If he had been in better condition, he wouldn't have hesitated to attack Clemson as he would probably be even physically superior to the red lemur. If only there weren't –.

"You're being a naughty boy today, my lovely king" the red lemur sighed, "Do I really have to remind you at what risk this can put you?"

He took up his remote from beneath the bed.

Julien leapt for the exit of the cave but they were quicker. Their shadows shifted across the walls and then they blocked his way, an army of the red-eyed, lemur-shaped creatures.

"Don't you _care…?_"

Clemson held a stuffed animal in his paw again which looked like Maurice. He poked a little around the doll's ear, picking out the soft white wool.

"What a bad lemur king you are. What a horribly bad king! For your own well-being you're ready to sacrifice nothing less than the lives of your servants, although you could've chosen differently!" And the zombies drew their weapons – these were huge, dangerous weapons the penguins called _blaster _or _bazooka_, and Julien was firmly convinced that they were the only animals who knew how to save themselves when being threatened with them.

But he, he was just one lemur – the lemur king, but to the zombies, it didn't matter. He ducked away, covering his face with his paws, pretending Clemson's words hadn't hurt him.

"Don't worry; they won't do you no harm" the red lemur whispered, "Not as long as you remember our deal… You come and be my tiny dancer, and in return I vow to spare your lemurs and won't bring a spark of evil upon your kingdom." He stepped closer to Julien and then slid his arms around his waist from behind, whispering into his ear.

"And that's what you want most of all, isn't it."

He pulled Julien back up on the bed who now willingly allowed him to do so.

Julien gasped, keeping his eyes closed, his throat so tight he could barely breathe when Clemson pushed him down in the cushion again.

None of the others could see the red lemur like that. When he'd visited them, he'd worn his mask all along. But now, in the heated darkness, his polite smiles turned into a grimace of scorn, his ambition into destructive desire, his good manners into craving lust for pain.

Julien knew exactly what he was just about to do once more –!

Clemson's paws were pinned against Julien's shoulders, keeping him firmly in place. Now he released one of them and eagerly examined the king's delicate form before he reached out to touch Julien's leg with a feather light stroke and then slid his paw under his booty and between his thighs. The lemur king froze, breathing hard, wide eyes fixed on Clemson, who could hear his rapid, terrified breathing and feel his entire body tremble beneath him.

Oh, how he loved this, how much he wanted Julien –!

Yet he resisted the urge to delve deeper and settle business first.

"So?"

Julien lowered his gaze and swallowed a sob.

"I'm staying."

Clemson bowed to reward him with a tender kiss on his forehead.

"Good king."

* * *

><p>When King Julien eventually returned, he seemed a mere shadow of his former self.<p>

Maurice tried to talk to him a few times but he would only give poor answers; he didn't seem particularly disinterested but more as if he wasn't quite willed to give away any information about himself.

What the party had been like?

"Nothing special."

What he had done with the rest of the weekend?

"Nothing special."

How his precious crown and the leaves he had been wearing had become so ragged?

"From the wind."

Then he lapsed into total silence like he had never done it before. The rest of the day he spent lying on his throne, his tail tightly curled around himself, in a state between daydreaming and semi-sleep. When Mort returned from the elephant habitat from his weekly arts lesson with Burt, Maurice had prepared some fruit smoothies for them and was even able to convince Julien to come down and have dinner with them.

The lemur king climbed off his throne, for the first time since his arrival offering Maurice the opportunity to really look at him. His eyes were bloodshot and swollen and he still kept on rubbing them constantly. He looked like he hadn't slept in weeks.

"School's out, yay!" Mort naturally didn't notice anything. "Now, what do we do with the rest of the evening?"

Maurice smiled. "We could go swimming."

"Yes, we could."

"Or, someone would like a massage maybe? How about you, Your Highness?"

"A massage?" Julien blanched with an expression of fear upon his face. "No… No, thanks."

"But I could give your feet a real good massage" Mort chuckled. Julien pushed him away.

"One more time you dare to touch my feet, and I'm sacrificing you to the Sky Spirits!"

Obviously he had decided to finally break his long silence.

Maurice found this was the time for a heart-to-heart talk.

"Mort, I just remember your king and I have a big and important task for you" he explained to the mouse lemur, "Go around the zoo asking the others for some sausage locks and some pairs of glass scissors. And don't come back until you found someone to borrow you these!"

"Sausage locks…?" Mort blinked. "Okay!" He hopped away joyfully.

Maurice turned back to the taller lemur to whom he could now pay attention without being interrupted. Julien stared at the horizon with a vacant expression. He sat mutely, his arms wrapped around his knees, as if Maurice weren't there. The advisor knelt down next to him. With a frown he examined his neck which he noticed being covered with red streaks.

"You're hurt."

His king said nothing in reply.

"Julien, what's just wrong with you? What is this all about? Come on, you know you can tell me anything, right?"

The lemur king huddled next to his throne and circled his arms around his knees. Then he quickly glanced up into the worried eyes of his chancellor. "It's nothing, Maurice! What should be wrong?"

The aye-aye crossed his arms. "I just want to know what changed you like this. No more massages, no more booty shaking, no more staying up all night… All this isn't just like you! And then you're bruised like this and you don't even tell me why –."

"I did tell you there was a subway…"

"Now don't try and fool me!" Julien slightly recoiled as Maurice moved closer to him, raising his tone. "…Now tell me, does that have something to do with Hoboken? With the royal meetings?"

Maurice felt he was about to put his finger on it; as he mentioned the name, Julien gazed up at him with frightened eyes. Before he could shake his head Maurice asked him, "Maybe you'd want me to come along next time? Just to make sure you're… safe there?"

He doubted Julien would allow him to fully see through it, so it was probably best for him to go with him and find out himself.

Julien's entire body stiffened and he stood up, staring at his advisor with wide eyes.

"NO!" he contradicted much more harshly than necessary, "No! No, never! There's no way_ you'll_ be going there!"

His knees were trembling as if they were going to give way at any moment and his face all of a sudden seemed devoid of blood. "I… I just mean, there's nothing you could do there…"

"Julien, you're my king! If there's any danger to you, I need to know about it."

But the lemur king just pulled his knees to his chest and wrapped his arms around them, hiding his face from the light, falling silent again.

Maurice was done seeing him like this, not being able to do anything against it.

"Why don't you trust me, Julien?" he called out, anger rising inside him, "You do know very well what's wrong; you just won't tell me about it! – Though I've always been a good chancellor to you, wasn't I! So what have I done to deserve this?"

His king glanced at him, an expression of both irritation and hurt filling his eyes.

"I can't tell you, so stop asking me about it!" he hissed, "Leave me alone!"

He leapt away and withdrew into the shadows of a palm tree where he curled himself up behind his tail and kept a stony silence until the sun had set.

The sky had been clouding up all afternoon and as soon as night fell it started to rain.

As the rain poured down more heavily during the course of the night, the habitat was soon flooded except from some rare dry places the lemurs spent the night in.

Maurice's anger faded as soon as he watched Julien sleep.

From the inside of the Lemur Café he looked over to the palm trees; he found Julien shivering and hugging himself tightly, obviously fighting a nightmare he was engrossed in. He heard him whisper in his dreams.

"Bad place. Making me sick. This lemur. Sick. Making me sick."

His whispers choked, and then he clutched his tail and began tearing out hair from it. Maurice bit his lips in horror when he saw the black and white wads of fur in Julien's shaking paws. He was about to run over and wake him up when Julien jumped awake, panicking and breathing heavily.

"Your Majesty!" Maurice hurried over to him.

Julien floundered to his feet when the advisor arrived. "Maurice…" His voice was rough and tense with panic. "Maurice, where'd he go –?"

"What're you talking about?"

But the king just anxiously looked around himself, stared into the darkness and rain, his eyes in a daze. "Look!" he yelled, "There he is! Look at him!" He pointed somewhere beyond the wall of the lemur habitat.

Before Maurice could stop him, he ran off and, with the help of the bouncy house, took a big leap over it.

"Julien!" Maurice followed him outside the habitat. "Come back here!"

His king was standing on one of the visitor paths, screaming loudly and full of fear as he pointed away from himself and towards the closed zoo entrance, where he obviously believed to see someone.

"Why are you coming here?!" he desperately called into the darkness, "Why are you coming? I didn't betray you! I was always doing like you said! Why are you coming now to be threatening everybody?! Go away from here! Leave us in peace! Go away!"

"Hey! What's all that noise?!" Roy's tall shadow rose from behind the wall of the rhinoceros habitat. "Would you mind being any more quiet at so late an hour?"

Julien didn't seem to hear him. Despite the rain more animals came hurried to the walls of their habitats to look over them with scared faces.

"Is something wrong?" Marlene called down to the royal advisor, "Anybody hurt?"

"It's nothing! Sorry, sorry guys. Just let me handle it." Maurice tried hard to avoid any trouble. He hurried to catch up with his king and grabbed Julien by his paw.

"Stop it, Julien" he hissed, "You're scaring everyone!"

"B-but look –!" Short, gasping breaths broke his voice as he pointed at something visible only to his eyes. "Don't you see…? They're here! We're all doomed!"

Maurice peered into the darkness. Thunder rumbled in the distance. There was nothing, nothing but the solitude of the night and the empty visitor paths in the lashing rain.

"There's nobody!" he tried telling his king as calmly as he could, "You were just having a nightmare. A stupid dream. Come back now."

He held his king's paw tightly in his. But Julien was utterly caught up in his fear; his breath grew rougher and faster until waves of dizziness overcame him and Maurice hurried to bring him back to the habitat and made him lie down inside the small shed in order to calm him. Yet his shock about what he believed to have seen was so great he couldn't stop shivering for a long while; he struggled to stay awake and stammered nothing but unintelligible words when Maurice tried to talk to him.

"Here" the advisor whispered breathlessly, wrapping a big warm leaf around Julien's quivering shoulders. His fur was all soaked from the frigid rain; the numbing cold seemed to run even under his skin and deep into his core. Maurice sat next to him quietly until he had calmed down a little.

"What was your dream about?" Maurice carefully asked while he handed his king a small pan of guava berries. He watched Julien eat one tiny berry and then push away the pan.

"I'm not remembering…" the lemur king pretended, "I'm just knowing it was horrible."

His body stiffened, his eyes shifting slightly to Maurice. "From now on, I shall avoid dreams like this by not sleeping anymore. No more sleeping; no more resting of any kind, and here I go, happy and free from nightmares."

The advisor sighed. He didn't even bother trying to tell him this wouldn't work. He remembered Julien talking in his sleep.

_This lemur is making me sick…_

He took a deep breath and then dared to pronounce his strong suspicion: "Look, if this is about you and your boyfriend –."

"_Clemson is not my boyfriend!_" Julien yelled at Maurice so loudly it scared him. The older lemur ducked away. Could the reason behind all this really be lovesickness?

"So… you broke up?" he carefully asked, holding his paws up for shelter.

Julien darted a very enraged look at him. "Are you not getting it, Maurice? _We are not boyfriends! _We cannot be being broken up, because we never were courting!"

"But… but when he came to visit… Come on, no need to pretend. The first times you went there you were so enraptured, telling me what a fine guy he is. And when he visited us some weeks ago you two were holding paws and –."

"Lies!" Julien screamed, "Lies, all of it! Bad, sick _lies!_"

His voice broke, and then he started trembling really badly. Maurice carefully put a paw on Julien's shoulder, trying to comfort him. The king's fur was soft like silk but the moment Maurice's paws felt contact, Julien winced as if he had been hit. He tensed up immediately, sucking in a quick breath, and then he pushed Maurice away so hard the older lemur stumbled back.

"Don't touch me."

An expression of utter fear widened Julien's eyes. He held out both paws against Maurice as if trying to defend himself against him for whatever reason.

"_Don't touch me!_"

His words choked off. He froze, breathing hard, wide eyes fixing Maurice.

"What on earth has gotten into you?!" the advisor burst out at him, "I'm just trying to _help_ you! And you, you treat me like your _enemy_…!"

Julien recoiled, visibly shocked and hurt at the outburst. "S-sorry—"

He regretfully clutched his ringed tail and started picking on it again. Maurice couldn't stand watching him do this for long. He grabbed his king's paws so Julien could not go on with his destructive work. When he felt that Julien wouldn't mind the touch this time he went on, took another leaf and wrapped him into a tight embrace and then the leaf around them both. Julien was stiff and hesitant at first but it didn't take long until he would let down his inner wall of insecurity and give in to the warmth of Maurice's arms.

"Oh Maurice, I'm so sorry…" A sob tore at his throat. Then he curled up beside him, burying his face against Maurice's shoulder, more sobs shaking him.

"My king…" Tears welled up in Maurice's eyes, too, as sympathy overwhelmed him. He felt Julien's arms slide around his waist and worried about how badly he was shaking and how cold his skin under his fur was.

Then the king lifted his head and glared at his advisor through his tears.

"You're in danger" he expressed surprisingly clearly, "It's danger to both of us. But it's either you or me." He didn't say more.

Maurice listened with wide eyes.

"Then it's the king who should be protected!" he exclaimed.

But Julien shook his head. "Sometimes the king must be making sacrifices for his peoples. And my sometimes is now. I can save you… and Mort, and the zoo, of course. There's nothing else we can be doing… It's being too late, Maurice. I'm not getting out of this anymore."

He held his advisor's gaze.

For the sake of his kingdom and his lemurs, he would not say a word more than this.

And he would go again, like he had promised.


	10. Chapter 9 - Lemur Pride

CHAPTER 9

**LEMUR PRIDE**

"Admit it: you like it!"

When he said no, faintly, sobbingly, when he tried to escape from the red lemur, when blows were raining upon him and soft touches were confusing him, this was what Julien would hear Clemson repeat to him:  
>"Admit it, you <em>like<em> it, you spoiled little bitch."

Julien mentally crawled away into his very inside, closed his eyes, forbade himself to feel. No feelings; no pain, no guilt, no shame, just following orders. Letting the other one have his way with him. Doing what he was told, nothing more, nothing against it, trying not to feel anything, anything.

And when it was over he would just lie there. Without a sound, without the slightest shiver. His fur tousled all over his face. His body stiffened and completely motionless with terror, only able to silently weep and listen as Clemson described the various tortures he had thought up for him for the next night.

He took such great pleasure in his fear and misery. This was his idea of fun.

Julien told himself it was only a dream. A dark, sick nightmare.

_If I fall asleep with my head under the blanket, I will suffocate_, he reflected, _and then I will not have to wake up again in the morning. Perfect._

He eventually managed to fall asleep the way he had planned.

However, when he woke up the next morning, he had to notice that nothing had happened.

Waves of disappointment grieved him.

Then he noticed with surprise that the red lemur beside him wasn't awake yet. Clemson's body against his was motionless, his breath deep and calm.

Julien had never seen the red lemur asleep before.

It was the first morning he was up before Clemson was. As far as he could remember, Clemson had never been sleeping as long as he was around, certainly because he wanted to make sure that Julien wouldn't do anything he didn't know of.

He carefully took up the red paw that was lightly wrapped around his waist from behind and lifted it. Clemson sighed and shifted in his sleep but his eyes remained closed.

Julien was free.

He floundered to a sitting position, cringing as he struggled upright, the stings in his wounded thighs and abdomen bringing tears of pain to his eyes. He gazed at the other lemur again. Watching Clemson sleep was an odd sight to him; he looked so calm and innocent, strands of his auburn fur draped across his face which seemed all peaceful and without a spark of evil in his traits. When these eyes of penetrating emerald green were closed, no one would ever guess what was truly hiding behind them.

Julien bit his lips; he could just walk away, back to the Central Park Zoo like he usually did and pretend nothing had happened. Clemson wouldn't care, as long as he came back.

He got off the bed. A flash of pain shot up his left leg and he stifled a painful moan. He looked down on himself and tried to brush his fur at least a bit over the scratch wounds. Maybe after all he would have to find a more trustworthy excuse than getting stuck in a subway door or accidentally falling into an open manhole.

How he was sick of lying to Maurice…!

He took a few steps ahead, biting back the tears that threatened to take him.

After he had made half his way through the cave he noticed one of the zombies by the exit. There was no light in its red eyes; it seemed to be sleeping just like its master. Its gun lay loosely on the floor next to it. Without really thinking about it, Julien reached for it. He twisted it in his paws, feeling the gray metal.

A thought flashed up in his mind.

He turned back to the bed.

The weapon in his paw suddenly felt warm and sticky, like molten chocolate.

Couldn't this be what solved all his problems?

The easiest and probably the only way to get out of this tragedy once and for all?

No more lies, no more horrible party nights in Hoboken, no more –.

He pulled the slide; he'd watched Skipper do this once. A soft metallic sound indicated the weapon was loaded. He lifted it and aimed.

But he couldn't.

He couldn't just go ahead and shoot Clemson.

Resigned, he lowered the gun.

Maybe it was justified, after all the red lemur had done to him. For everything he'd taken from him, for every night he'd forced him into a burning hell of lust and torture – wasn't this just the perfect chance to show him this was no way to treat a king, no way to treat anyone?

In trance he watched his own shaking paw raise the weapon again. His fingers tightened on the trigger of the gun.

_He couldn't just go ahead and shoot him_.

Someone else could've done so; the penguins maybe. Someone who was used to deal with the violence of weapons. Someone who was used to deal with different enemies than complaining neighbors. But he, he couldn't. He couldn't shoot at anyone.

Not even at this terrible lemur who was yet so peacefully sleeping and –.

With a soft sigh Clemson shifted his legs under the blanket and stretched himself.

His green eyes opened.

Wandered around sleepily.

And finally fixed the weapon aimed at him.

"Oh no… no!" With a soft scream the red lemur leapt off the bed and hid behind it.

"Julien! – What… what on earth are you doing?! Don't even think about this!"

After a time, when Julien apparently refused to use the weapon or reply to him in any other way, Clemson peeked over the upper edge of the bed very carefully. The trace of unmistakable fear in his eyes was an amazing sight to Julien, yet couldn't bring him to go ahead and intensify it.

The red lemur kept on watching him for a while. When Julien was still doing nothing, he plucked up courage, making use of his greatest strength: his communication skill.

"Fine, go ahead then. Shoot me. Shoot me, unarmed as I am, and feel so good you killed someone defenseless. Is this something that makes you proud?"

Julien didn't answer. He didn't move. He just started shaking all over.

When he noticed his words were obviously affecting Julien, Clemson kept going at it.

"Let's see how you square this with your conscience: killing one of your own. One of your subjects. Your servants. What kind of king would do such things? Not a lemur king, right? A good and noble lemur king loves his people. He's loyal to them; he knows and does what's best for them. He mustn't be selfish and he always supports and loves his kingdom and people and never, NEVER does any harm to them."

Clemson now dared to step forward and out of shelter. He approached Julien directly in the line of fire, his paws still raised in a gesture of defense but his voice clear and fearless.

"I'm sure you're a good king. Aren't you? So just be sensible and put that gun down, okay? Put it down—!"

He stepped closer and closer, his green eyes piercing Julien, just like they had done the previous night before he—. The memory came back in a flash of pain.

Enough pain to make the choice.

With a desperate cry Julien pulled the trigger.

The gun fired with a horribly loud sound.

Once. Twice. Once more.

Clemson threw himself to the floor although none of the bullets went even anywhere near him. Julien fired with his eyes squeezed shut. He was trembling so badly the bullets were going off randomly across the room.

He fired one last missing shot.

Then the empty gun escaped his trembling paw and dropped to the floor.

Clemson remained motionless only for a moment; his face was ashen with terror.

Then, before Julien could make a move, he grabbed a cue from the billiards table and attacked his opponent. Both lemurs fell to the floor, tangled with one another. Julien screamed when Clemson broke the cue over his face with one powerful blow. The red lemur smiled widely in fiendish pleasure; for a moment his rage turned into a thirst for blood beyond control. A series of blows rained down against Julien. Ribs cracked. Julien's screams turned into moans, his body convulsing from the constant beats that didn't allow him to catch his breath anymore. His eyes gleaming with ire, Clemson dug his claws into the wounds on Julien's legs, ripping fur and tearing skin. Julien screamed again, a long, ragged cry until his lungs failed him.

_Maurice come and help me –_

Clemson kept on punching his left flank and stomach until Julien fell to his back, giving up any defense, not moving anymore, not making a sound.

Clemson got back to his feet, heavily breathing and licking his bloody paws.

"That's what you deserve for trying to sell me out like that" he panted, "And don't worry, this was just the beginning."

He crept back to the bed, looking for his remote. Hardly conscious, Julien knew he'd found it when he felt himself being lifted in the air by the paws of the zombie he'd taken the blaster from. It carried him out of the cave and over the visitor ways of the zoo which hadn't opened yet. Still, Clemson looked around attentively to make sure no one was watching them.

_Maurice come and save me please please please –_

Every single bone in his body aching and flickering lights blurring his vision, Julien realized a small well in the vicinity he was carried towards. It was probably abandoned as and inside the zoo it was of no use anymore; besides it was located in an area of unused habitats.

Without a warning the zombie threw Julien down into it.

The water hit him hard, the shock about its icy coldness bringing the lemur king back to his senses. He panted for breath. Everything was cold, _cold_, it was all he felt, creeping under his skin and chilling him to his very bones. For a moment he believed he was going to drown; then he found footing on the ground of well. Yet the water remaining in it was so much it touched his chin even when he stood upright.

Far up there upon him the light of the new morning sparkled.

It was shadowed only by the silhouette of the red lemur's face.

"There you go" he heard Clemson's scornful voice from above, "Don't worry, I'll come looking after you from time to time… After all, I have to make sure you haven't drowned or died from the cold. Because you know I need you again tonight, my love."

Julien closed his eyes, wishing that before the night fell, the icy darkness would pull him under and into a silent death.

_Maurice…_

* * *

><p>The aye-aye bounced over the wall of the lemur habitat, leaving it behind completely empty.<p>

Mort was sleeping over at Bada's and Bing's habitat after the gorillas had provided him with a year's supply of icy pops.

He was on his own.

Armed with nothing but his walking cane and the unbroken will to save his king.

It had to be enough.

He was the king's advisor; he saw it as his duty to shelter him from anything that threatened him, even though Julien himself might have chosen to do a different thing. Certainly, his set of rules as an advisor forbade him to question the king.

But he had a different reason that authorized him to do so nevertheless.

King or not, Julien was his friend. His best friend even.

And he was worried sick about him. He couldn't stand any longer witnessing the pain that marred his movements every day, the grief and madness of Hoboken that threatened to devour his soul until hardly anything could keep him anchored in reality. Regardless of whether he had been elected the royal advisor, he'd become Julien's friend over the years. Someone who respected him and trusted him and didn't judge him, even though this was hard sometimes. Someone who supported him no matter what, who stuck around even when things got tough, just like now. He loved him because he'd chosen to do so, not because it was advantageous to him if he did, like so many other lemurs from their realm back in Madagascar had.

Even if he was a self-centered, egoistical king all too often who expected appreciation and acceptance from everyone – he'd always been like this, and Maurice had grown to live with it and love him the way he was.

All he wanted was to have his old friend back.

Noise from the entrance of the zoo caught his ear.

It was the penguin team just about to return from Miami. They obviously had managed to successfully complete their mission as they were in company of the two chimpanzees alive and well. Maurice lifted a paw for a short wave from a distance but didn't stop to talk to them. He wasn't even sure they'd noticed him at all until Skipper belly-slid in front of him, blocking his path.

"Where do you think you're going, gray lemur?"

"To Hoboken" Maurice explained with firm conviction, "I'm going there myself and clarify what shady business is going on there once and for all. Besides, it's Monday night already and my king hasn't returned at all." He evaded the penguin leader's appalled look and played with the subway token he was carrying. "I just have to go and see what's really happening to him, even though I know he doesn't want me to. He said there was danger for me and for him!"

But Skipper shook his head and held out one flipper to keep Maurice from proceeding.

"Negitory. You can't do that!"

The old lemur darted an angry glance at him.

"Look, I know you're annoyed because he turned a deaf ear to your advice when you tried to warn him about Hoboken. But what he's going through at the moment is really enough of a lesson! I finally want my old king back the way he used to be… I want my friend to be out of this misery!"

He pushed the penguin aside and was about to leap over the zoo wall when the leader belly-slid in his way again.

"That's _not _what I meant, Maurice! All I intended to say was you can't just… you know, walk in there and demand the truth. Who knows whatever this foul play is about and how many there are truly involved? At worst you'll have a whole zoo against you the minute they find out you're there."

Skipper's words unleashed a desperate frown on the older lemur's face. Maurice knew he was right. "But someone has to save him…!"

"Yeah, but you're not trained for that, soldier. When it comes to facing Hoboken, better leave it to someone adept in commando skills." Skipper patted his shoulder. "Don't worry; you'll have your king back in no time."

This took Maurice by surprise. "But before you said –."

"I know." Skipper's paused, his face pale in the shadows of slanting moonlight. "I was wrong."

Maurice could hardly believe what he heard. After all, Skipper never admitted when he was at fault, everyone knew he utterly hated to do so, and if he did, then only if it was something that deeply, gravely, seriously concerned him and his brothers, not when it was about someone he disliked as much as Julien.

"Listen, I know Ringtail's a buffoon, no doubt about that!" he said with a scowl, "I know this isn't the last time he'll get himself into something like this, nor will he probably learn anything from it! But what can I say? It's just not right. Last time he got here, I saw what he was like. Whatever is happening to him there – he definitely hasn't deserved it. No one of our zoo mates deserves something like Hoboken, not even him."

Maurice's face brightened with joy and relief. "So you… You'll help him?"

"Affirmative."


	11. Chapter 10 - Head Over Heels

CHAPTER 10

**HEAD OVER HEELS**

The leader was about to leave the place, his mind already racing through any possible plan of attack, when Maurice hugged him. "Thank you." A look of great relief washed upon the older lemur's face, and Skipper returned the smile.

"Say, you still have that paper?"

"Sorry?"

"The invitation Ringtail got before he went there for the first time."

"Sure, we keep it back in our habitat. Since Julien is with Clemson it doesn't seem he needs to take it along any longer." Maurice went to get it for him. As Skipper had hoped, the blue maple leaf was still attached to it.

"It's that leaf I need" he explained, "Phil said it worked as a pass. If I take this with me, I can make them believe I was a zoo king and get in there unnoticed."

Maurice nodded. "So that's your plan. – Say, shouldn't I come along and help you?"

"Uh… no thanks, I think I better go about this without any civilians."

_And generally without anyone else, _he decided while belly-sliding back to the penguin HQ. For some reason he didn't want his team into this, least of all Private.

This time he would fly solo.

It would be tough but he'd had worse; this was Hoboken and not Denmark, so he was convinced that even without his team there was a chance for victory.

Back at the HQ Skipper's men were going about their evening routines: Private was watching the Lunacorns on TV, Rico was fixing the car and Kowalski was in his lab experimenting. Skipper took the elevator to one of the classified sub-levels of the HQ where he kept his disguises.

He would trick Clemson at his own game: when the red lemur had visited them, he had acted to be someone else than he truly was. Now, it was time to turn the tables.

He got in front of the mirror and skipped through his disguise files.

How would he go about this?

He looked at himself in the mirror and then started brushing his black forehead feathers back. He curled the ends up a bit, giving himself a look both handsome and boyish. Then he put on his bowler hat with the green band and completed the contrast with little kid accessories from the Zoo's lost and found office. He finished the disguise with his never-failing fake mustache. A tiny smile formed at the corners of his mouth: he looked just perfect. He wasn't Skipper anymore; he was now wealthy industrialist Lincoln Douglas, a naïve, spoiled young new-rich.

Just then he heard the elevator go, and a small familiar shadow fell upon him from behind.

"Skipper, I brought you some coffee because you didn't have any this morning. I thought… - Oh, who are you, Sir?!" Private was so surprised he almost dropped the mug he was carrying. However, he just managed to catch himself and put it down before he got in fighting position. "These are our skipper's private rooms! However you got here, stranger, you certainly have no permission to be here!"

"At ease, lad." Skipper laughed and removed the mustache.

"Oh Skipper, it's you…!" The youngest stared at him with beak agape. "But why are you in disguise? Are we going on a mission?"

"Not _us._" He hadn't really thought about how much he would tell his team about it but now it was too late to do so anyway. "_I'm_ going. Solo."

"Oh… okay." Private followed his leader as he waddled back to the elevator. "So where you're going then?"

"Sorry, that's classified."

"But it's… it's not Hoboken, right, Skipper?"

"I said classified, Private."

"But Skipper!" No matter how hard he tried, Private would always feel if he tried to keep a secret from him. The little one hopped up and down in front of him frantically waving his flippers as if this could change his leader's mind.

"No buts, Private. You do know that on the rarest of occasions there are missions that require that I go solo, and this is one of them."

"But it's Hoboken. Remember? _Hoboken._ – If you have to go there at all, at least take us along!"

Alarmed by the youngest one's panicky voice, the rest of the team quickly came to join them.

"Do you really have to go?" Kowalski asked with concern, and Rico looked even more worried than him.

_I wish I didn't –_

"Yeah, I gave my word. There's no going back now."

"But what do you want there?!"

_Save a poor fool of a lemur from this devilishly dangerous place –_

"Er… It's Hans. I really need to settle my old feud with that demented Dane once and for all!"

Kowalski raised an eyebrow. "So… after all the secrets you keep about your Denmark adventure, I guess you don't want the three of us to come along, right?"

"You're batting a thousand, Kowalski."

The three of them looked at him in worried silence. Skipper hated to see them like this and even more, he hated lying to them, but this time he had no choice. He was sure that after their conversation with Maurice, Kowalski and Rico were guessing what was really behind this but he prayed that for Private's sake they would hush about it.

"Is there… anything you need?" his second-in-command asked hesitatingly.

"All I need from here is an alias, which I just got from Level 11, and a nice cup of fishy cappuccino before I leave, which Private just got me. – Thanks, Private."

"You're welcome" the young one mumbled, putting the tips of his flippers together and casting his worried eyes to the ground.

"Oh, and a pack of gumball explosives." – Kowalski hurried to waddle into his lab to get his leader a pack of them. – "Thank you; that should be enough to do the trick."

Skipper confidently walked past his men still standing in line in silent concern.

"Call if you need anything else, okay?" Kowalski muttered as his leader came past him.

"Sure. But I'll be back before you know it, you can bet on it. You know how that works, don't you, Kowalski: there are few constants in this crazy world of ours but there is one certainty on which you can always rely – I can take care of myself."

Skipper backflipped up the ladder leading topside. He didn't look back.

He never did.

Kowalski and Private quietly continued watching the Lunacorns for a while, rather wrapped in thought about their leader than about the show, when something behind them blew up with a loud bang.

"Rico, remember what Skipper said: no weapons-testing indoors!" the tall penguin who was now the first one in command called over his shoulder.

His comrade made a series of grunting noises, sounding confused and upset at the same time.

"Sorry?" Kowalski turned to him and blinked in confusion; Rico's face was blackened with ash and his Mohawk slightly burned. He repeated his grunting.

"What did he say?" Private turned the TV down.

"He said he wasn't testing any artillery" Kowalski analyzed, "Apparently the explosion was caused by a chewing gum he was trying to eat."

"A chewing gum?" Private looked at the tiny gumball box Rico was holding in his charred flipper. "Oh, no…!" he cried out, his face turning pale.

"And what now?!"

"It's the gumballs! Skipper wanted to take the explosive ones along. The packs must've gotten mixed up. – If the explosive ones are still here, this means you must've given him the _real _gumballs, Kowalski!"

"What…?!" The tall penguin bit his beak when he realized his mistake. "Of course; instead of giving him those hidden in the kitchen shelf I got him the pack of gumballs from my lab. I ate some of them before for inspiration when I was trying to solve that equitation of Laplace's demon. Stunned by the solution as I was, I must've totally confused the packs. – Ha, classic me!" He laughed out loud, and then looked at the others with embarrassment. "I guess that's… not good…"

How would Skipper be able to handle any potential enemy in combat with gumballs that actually consisted of gum?

Rico consolingly patted his shoulder and grumbled something. Kowalski looked up to him.

"What; you want to go after Skipper to bring him the real ones?" he asked thankfully, "– But he said he didn't want us on the mission…"

Rico growled again.

"You're right, he took the subway" Private said, "If you take the car, you might be fast enough to catch up with him before he can even get to the Hoboken Zoo. Well, maybe…"

"Thanks, Rico." Kowalski seemed relieved.

The rogue penguin nodded and expressed a sound very close to 'no problem'.

He regurgitated the car keys, waddled to the garage and tossed the pack of explosives into the tiny pink trunk. Seconds later they could hear the engine of Vroom-Vroom roar.

"Be careful" Private called after him.

"Rico!"

Another voice called his name when he was about to drive past one of the other habitats.

He stopped the car. In the rearview mirror he saw Maurice hurry after him.

"Wait for me… You're off to Hoboken, right?" – The rogue penguin nodded. – "Take me along! I need to help my king!"

Rico thought about this. He was sure Skipper didn't want any unauthorized personnel on this mission; however, as he himself was on his way to Hoboken now unauthorized, it wouldn't probably matter that much.

He shrugged, opening the passenger door.

As soon as Maurice sat beside him they hit the road.

* * *

><p>"…Money makes the world go round. How right you are, Sire; there's no doubt about this. However, if you spend your whole life chasing it and thinking that it will solve all your problems, won't you end up wasting your life? – Well, as far as I'm concerned, there can be only one answer to this: naturally, it would be a waste of your life <em>not<em> to do so!"

Common laugher followed and everyone raised their glasses to the new guest, toasting to his success.

With slogans like this Skipper had easily managed to win the trust of almost every guest here in Hoboken.

He had only been here for about half an hour and had already managed to integrate flawlessly. No one doubted the identity of the newcomer for a second, the exotic billionaire ruling the zoo of Grrfurjiclestan, a small town that was, according to him, located somewhere in Pennsylvania; not even the guards at the entrance of the Hoboken zoo who checked the arrivers.

When Skipper alias Lincoln handed them the maple leaf along with two faked hundred dollar bills, they would not ask any questions, like why he had never appeared here before, but open the golden double-doors for him and wish him a pleasant evening.

And very soon Lincoln Douglas was the new star of the Hoboken party.

He showed the great ego of a spruce young penguin who didn't follow the trend but set it, who had a taste for the world that was a playground to him upon which he rushed, grabbing everything in his way he could get for free.

"Would you care to do this waltz with me, Mr. Douglas?" an ostrich girl wearing a tiara of gingko leaves asked him when Rhonda, who was the DJ tonight, spun a record with a slow song. "Or, are you looking for someone?" she asked when she noticed Skipper constantly peering around himself in every direction as if he was expecting to recognize someone familiar between the guests.

"Why certainly, let us dance, lovely lady!" Skipper replied immediately, although he had different plans and was only listening with half an ear, "Or, I've got a charming idea; listen up everyone, how about a polonaise?"

Everyone cheered and toasted to him again although some seemed to be too drunk or too lazy to get up from their bar seats; however, at this point he had coaxed and bribed them enough none of them could refuse him anything.

"Let's go then, everybody; up, two, three, swing, two, three!"

On his command the crowd began organizing in a line. Skipper soon managed to lead them into a lively dance which continued freely; he danced with the ostrich girl and with Lulu and Rhonda and even with Hans who, in his drunken state, was far from recognizing him. And as soon the long line of animals was ready to proceed without him, he swiftly disappeared from the dance floor.

He silently cursed to himself.

The one he had been looking for all along – Clemson – had been nowhere in sight and none of the guests had been able to tell him where he was. Hardly any of them had actually known his name.

He sneaked off the lit visitor paths in order to look for the lemur habitat.


	12. Chapter 11 - Evacuate the Dance Floor

CHAPTER 11

**EVACUATE THE DANCE FLOOR**

_"Evacuate the dance floor!_

_I'm infected by the sound;_

_Stop, this beat is killing me;_

_Hey Dr. DJ…"_

"…Come burn this place right down to the ground!"

Singing full-throatedly as if he was dead drunk, Wealthy Industrialist Lincoln Douglas entered the red lemur's cave where he finally found its owner.

His back turned on the arriver, Clemson stood by his bed… bowed over another lemur's familiar figure lying between the sheets. Skipper's singing made him cringe; he obviously hadn't expected anyone to disturb him now.

"What is it, Sir?" Clemson asked in obvious dislike, "We're in the middle of something very important here! Please do not interrupt us."

He furiously glanced up at Skipper. The leader's heart skipped a beat when he looked into the red lemur's face for a moment. Clemson was grinning, showing bloodstained fangs, and swiped his tongue over his wet red lips, his cheeks glowing with the rapture he felt. A second later he had had wiped away all evidence of his crime and looked at the intruder as serious and sophisticated as he had done all the time during his previous visit.

Skipper hastily took off his bowler hat, trying to cover up his shock, pretending he'd seen nothing. "I'm terribly sorry to bother you but I was… uh, sent to tell you that the awards show is starting in about five minutes."

"Awards show?" The red lemur looked confused.

"Indeed! Didn't Señor Savio tell you you're awarded this week's most creative dancer?"

"I am? Uh… No, I wasn't told about that."

"In that case you better hurry because if you don't appear on the stage, the prize is going to the second best."

"Oh… Alright." Obviously overwhelmed by the hastiness of the information, Clemson jumped up and grabbed his comb, hastening to straighten his fur a little. Skipper accompanied him out on the place. He pointed at Rhonda managing the mixer console.

"It's the DJ who will present you with your award."

"Thank you for letting me know" Clemson said before disappearing in the crowd.

"My pleasure, Sir."

Skipper waited until he had left. He'd bought himself a maximum of time: in order to see Rhonda, Clemson had to elbow his way across the entire dance floor; overcrowded as it was, this would take a quite a while. And when Rhonda told him she knew about nothing, he would probably go to see Savio, and when this was unsuccessful, too, he would probably start to see through the trick, but even then he'd have to make all his way back over the dance floor again. Until then Skipper would have hopefully found a way out of here, for himself and for Julien.

He hurried back to the lemur's cave to see his victim.

Julien lay crouched between the sheets, barely conscious. Fresh bite marks covered his neck and chest. His face was white as an Arctic sky and his lips were blue with cold, his fur soaking wet with icy cold water, some of the fine hair even covered in frost.

"Talk to me, Ringtail" Skipper said in a low voice, "Hey, Julien!"  
>As this apparently wasn't enough to make him notice his presence, he put one flipper on the lemur king's shoulder, shocked to feel how cold his skin beneath his fur was.<p>

Julien's eyes snapped open and for a moment he didn't seem to see him. His wide eyes stared straight through Skipper for a long moment until he was able to focus on him. He blinked few times and then, startled at the stranger's touch, he immediately hid behind his bushy tail and started shaking all over.

"Who… who are you…? Please… Please, don't hurt me."

He was forcing his words out between barely repressed sobs.

This was the moment Skipper removed the disguise. "Julien! What happened?!"

"_Skipper…!_" The lemur king's eyes widened with great surprise. "But how…? – Does Clemson know you're here?"

"No. Well, at least not yet, I hope. But what of all that's good and decent has that guy done to you?!" He took his shivering paw and held it. "You look like you've been swimming in the Arctic Ocean for days."

"It was that well outside, at the North End of this zoo. I've been in there since Saturday night…" Cold seemed to pierce him to the bone, so chill that his paws cramped and he had to fight to keep them open. "But then he got me out again, saying it's too early to finish me yet."

His voice broke. Skipper said nothing in reply. He was struck dumb with dismay about how much more there was behind the mendacious façade Clemson had showed them. When Maurice had first talked to him about it, he'd barely been able to believe it, but now he saw well that the red lemur showed an extent of cruelty and deceit he'd hardly believed to be hidden inside him.

_This is going to be tougher than I thought…_

Against Skipper's expectations Julien looked very uneasy to see him here. He had curled himself up in his tail and looked up to him, lost and barely able to focus on what was going on around him. Cold sweat drenched his brow as he explained, "You shouldn't have come. It's dangerous that you're here… Not only for you, but for our entire zoo."

He turned away, closing his eyes and covering his face in the pillow in deep shame.

"But I can't take this any longer. If he takes me one more night, I'm going to give him his will and make him king." A small whimper escaped his throat and new tears seeped out from beneath his lids and slid down his temples. "I'm sorry… I'm so sorry!"

Skipper wasn't fully seeing through all of this yet but he was sure they had to hurry. It was just a matter of time Clemson would find out Lincoln Douglas had tricked him and Savio would tell him the award was a fraud.

He consolingly put a flipper to Julien's shoulder. "No one's going to be king of our zoo but you" he reassured him, "Don't you understand? This is ends now! You're going home with me, and you won't ever have to come back here. Clemson's party is over!"

Julien looked up at him in disbelief. Tears welled up in his eyes again, but this time these were tears of relief. "So you... you can get me out of it?" he stammered shakily, "You can save us all… save us from them?!" He flung himself against the leader's chest.

"_Them?_"

"Clemson and his zombies… You brought weapons and bombs and shields and all this commando stuff that will finish them up so easily, like you always do, right? Skipper?"

_Zombies…?_

Skipper was about to think about what he could possibly mean when he picked up the soft noise of the curtain behind them and Julien's face turned ashen.

"_Hi." _A creaking, artificial voice spoke to them. "_I know kung fu!_"

"What the –!" Skipper stared at the lemur's silhouette approaching them. When it stepped into the light, he saw it had just the slender and elegant figure that was Clemson's, just the same auburn fur – but when he looked into its eyes, words failed him. Its entire eyes were glowing bright red; the color filled the whole eye, not just the pupil, in a way one could not tell where it was exactly looking. That unbreakable, unwavering gaze seeming to burn a hole through anything these artificial eyes were set on…

The leader's heart skipped some beats until he realized that these eyes of the creature facing him were actually small light bulbs. He glanced back, waves of memories rushing upon him.

_The Hoboken Surprise._

The shiny, clean, bio-mechanical android doubles containing each animal's copied DNA built by Frances Alberta, Hoboken's ex-zookeeper, in an effort to meet her grossly overstated standard for cleanliness.

They were still intact, for whatever reason, and obviously more than ready to fight.

_If I'd only had the slightest clue._

He choked back his shock and got into combat position.

"You're not the real Clemson…" he muttered, "You're an android!"

"_Smart birdie"_ Android Clemson replied and began tackling him without warning.

If there was one thing he hated, it was to misjudge an enemy's power – a situation which, thanks to his many years of combat experience, luckily didn't happen to him often anymore. However, the supernatural strength of these androids had confused Skipper before, and it still irritated him now. Witnessing this enormity of power sent shivers down his spine once again; although he was familiar with it by now, he couldn't help it.

"_I'll crush you!_"

The creature grabbed the billiards table and lifted it with one paw. Skipper remembered his own android double picking up an entire bench just as easily. However, this time he was better prepared.

Skipper flipped back, pulling up the pack of gumballs.

"Take this!"

And he threw a flipper full of them at his opponent.

And waited.

And waited.

Until Android Clemson picked the colorful balls off his fur, upon his face an expression of as much disgust as an android could show.

"_Filth_" he claimed, "_Is that all you got?_"

Skipper blinked.

_Crud._

Android Clemson smashed the table down right next to him, missing him only by inches.

Then he rushed at the penguin leader, attacking him with all his android strength.

Skipper returned a salvo of quick slashes with his flippers as a counterattack; he immediately felt the staggering strength of his foe which a natural body of this size and stature could have never had. They went down both and rolled around on the floor, violently struggling with each other.

"_I'll tear you to pieces!_"

A strike at Skipper's throat – missing.

Skipper rolled over his foe and knocked his foot right into his face. He flipped over and let himself fall hard, then jumped right back up and in the best of momentum knocked out his foe so hard he could hear a metallic clang – as Android Clemson's head loosely dropped to the ground.

"Game over" Skipper panted. Julien, who had been covering his face with both paws during the fight, now took a careful peek between his fingers. "You won?"

"Yeah. But Hoover Dam, those beasts are tough! I've seen them before when we were trapped in this hell. But where the deuce did it come from now?!"

"They're Clemson's zombies. He said they were broken. But he took their pieces and reconstructed them until they all looked like him and be carrying out his orders. He said if I'm not coming to see him, he'll send them to our zoo. And then they'll be making us their slaves. They be punching you and kicking you and hurting you if you don't do what Clemson says…"

"So there's more of them?!"

"Yes. He's made himself an army."

There was no doubt Julien was right: it all made sense to him now. Clemson's interest in Kowalski's explanations; his sudden and almost disturbingly great knowledge about technology. _'Tinkering has become my new hobby'_ – who would've guessed that in his case it meant building an army of zoomorphic robots to help him carry out dirty deals!

And when he looked around here in his cave between the untidy mess he found all suspicion confirmed once more: what he'd believed to be something like used napkins were really construction plans filled with complicated calculations, empty Coke cans and plush toys were covering wrenches, hammers, a welder, a set of hex tip screwdrivers and several other objects which pointed out to busy technical labor. The penguin leader clenched one flipper in silent anger.

_And I insisted on flying solo…_

"Come on, let's get out of here."

Skipper helped Julien up and the lemur king lifted his paw around his shoulders. Still badly injured as he was, Julien barely managed to stumble to his feet and Skipper dragged and carried him along as carefully as he could as they were on their way out of the cave.

They carefully peeked out from behind the curtain into the backyard of the lemur habitat.

The sound of their thudding hearts seemed to treacherously echo in the tense silence. Skipper's mind began racing as he glanced around hastily. He counted the shadows shifting between the trees: Two. Four. Seven. He silently cursed to himself.

Then he gave Julien a signal to move back towards the cave.

"There's too many of them" he explained as soon as they were out of earshot, "Taking them all would be really dangerous, even for a well-trained soldier like me."

"They be killing us" Julien whispered fearfully, "We're not going to get away."

"We will!" Skipper patted his shoulder encouragingly. "But I need my team for that. With the help of my disguise I'll sneak back out of here unseen to gather them and –."

"No!" Julien grabbed his flipper and held it so tight it almost hurt. His eyes flickered upon Skipper's face and then grew wet again. "Don't go away without me" he choked between sobs, "Don't leave me back here alone, Skipper! As soon as you're gone Clemson will be coming back to me and –."

"Okay, okay, I won't." The penguin leader admitted to himself he hadn't thought of this. He wrapped one flipper tight around Julien's shoulders to calm him while in a matter of seconds his mind raced through any possible alternative escape plan there was. Unfortunately none ended in success. If only he'd known why the explosives weren't working –!

"We'll make it" he promised nevertheless, "Come on, these kindergarten crackerjacks can't do anything to us!"

The best defense was a good offense, he used to say himself, and sometimes the only plan of attack was to attack. And when this was the plan, nothing else could help – but taking a deep breath and getting into it.

Skipper sprung forward from his hiding place with a 'hi-ya!', willingly presenting himself to the enemy.

He didn't feel anything. He didn't let anything touch him, neither risk nor fear nor the pain of his enemy's hits. He knew that in order to win a fight like this, he had to work with the situation, not against it.

"_Dirty birdie! Dirty birdie!"_

The androids rushed upon him in shoals. The first one was about to hit him but Skipper jumped back in time. The punch went right into the cave wall, powerful enough to make several cracks appear there. At the same moment a second one coming up from behind unnoticed tackled Skipper. Both of them hit the dirty ground, struggling, straining, trying to hold each other down. Skipper took advantage of a tiny moment he had gained the upper hand and managed to smash the android against the one from before. Both of them fell back.

_Two down. _

However, as the other artificial lemurs remaining noticed this, each of them immediately had a gun at hand.

Out of the corner of his eye Skipper saw Julien scurry away into the darkness before the fire started. He was content with this; Julien had really endured enough tonight and the nights before. Besides, wounded as he was, the lemur would be of no help to him in combat anyways; and with an amount of enemies as huge as this Skipper could not allow anything or anyone to hinder his range of action.

"_All filthy animals must be trashed!_"

Skipper dived under a salvo of shoots. Bullets slammed into the ground and the wall, inches away from him. Things were getting nasty now.

"_Trashed! Trashed! Trashed!_"

Skipper managed to disarm at least four of them. However, even without their weapons the androids were far from giving up; they bore down on Skipper until they had him cornered, and then lunged at him for more hits. Skipper reeled as one of them hit his neck with brutal force. He backflipped, taking himself out of the danger zone before the assailant could sweep him off his feet. Then he counterattacked, twisting his assailant's arm and then shoving him hard against the wall. Another one immediately took his place – more and more enemies joined the combat scenery.

Skipper whacked them fearlessly, stabbed their fleshy yet lifeless flanks, pushed them back in a way they would end up shooting each other, bodyslammed them, strangled them, and bashed their heads together.

Nothing was working. Nothing at all.

For every android he defeated there seemed to be at least three in replacement, and they kept on coming. A slash at face height – Skipper staggered back. He felt his power wane as a dozen of heavy strikes came at his stomach. One wrong step – he fell, tasting blood on his beak. _Damn. _A pile of androids slammed into him from above. His visual field began to flicker. Somewhere in the dark he heard Julien scream; there was no doubt the androids had gotten a hold of him now as well.

He had failed him.

He had promised he would take the two of them out of here safely, but he had painfully and obviously failed to do so.

_We're dying_. The thought very shortly flashed through Skipper's mind and then was gone again. _I could have made it. If my whole team was here, I could have made it. If only I hadn't decided to swim alone. Always remember the penguin credo…_

* * *

><p><em><strong>AN:** Thank you all so much for your positive feedback._ _ This is just so much more than I expected! ___ Seriously, I would've never ever believed that. _I really want to give a big hug to every single one of you for your support and encouragement.  
><em>


	13. Chapter 12 - Kaboom!

CHAPTER 12

**KABOOM!**

At this very moment there was a different kind of explosion.

Sweat was stinging Skipper's eyes as he opened them to see the bodies of several androids break down beside him. More detonations followed, in a way he would recognize among a billion – there was only one soul who knew to take down enemies like this.

A smile played upon Skipper's bleeding beak. Nothing was lost.

He was about to pick himself up when an android got close to him again. But something was tossed between him and the enemy – it landed on the floor right next to him, tiny and round, the size of a gumball…

Luckily it was only one of them, so the full impact of the blast did not harm him but the shock wave knocked him senseless for some heartbeats. However, he quickly recovered from the short swoon when several voices urged him to wake up.

"Hey!" he heard a familiar growling very close to his ear, and then he felt his brother's flipper poke him softly. He blinked and then looked up into his eyes and those of the two lemurs. The three of them had bowed over him in worry.

"I'm alright" he said quickly, "Rico, my man, you were just a little open-handed with the dynamite, that's all." The rogue penguin laughed a little and patted his back.

His chest still heaving from the blast wave of the explosion, Skipper looked around himself. A bunch of android bodies lay around them motionlessly. Where Skipper had failed, a well-armed demolition expert like Rico had successfully eradicated them.

The rogue penguin lifted his leader over his shoulder and then urged the others to follow him to what he believed the safest place to hide: the dungeons of the Hoboken Zoo – the place the real zoo inhabitants had been locked up when Frances Alberta was about to execute her delirious plan. They couldn't stay in the lemur habitat any longer: if they did, Clemson would certainly come back to send more androids after them.

Down in the underground cave, surrounded by sewer pipes and wet darkness, they huddled together two by two, the lemurs and the penguins.

Rico let out a series of grumbling, squawking and gnarling sounds, explaining the situation about the mixed up gumballs to Skipper. Then the two penguins made up a hasty plan how to go on. Meanwhile Maurice cared for his king.

"Julien, are you alright? Hell, you're cold as ice. What has Clemson done to you?!"

"Oh, Maurice…!"

More than happy about his friend being here, Julien flung himself into Maurice's arms, draping over his warm chest and burying his face in the white fur, his cheeks glistening with tears as he looked up at him again. "You – you shouldn't be here! It's dangerous –!"

"Don't worry; it's the penguins who are on the case now."

The older lemur carefully put one arm around his shoulders. "But what on earth is there about you and Clemson? What's behind all this?!"

Julien hesitated for a moment but then began to let down the walls of insecurity, embarrassment and shame he had fortified the last weeks and months, the parts of his heart that he had locked away from his friend. He moved closer to Maurice.

"He wanted to become king of all the zoos" he explained bitterly, "He told me I'd either leave to him the lemur crown, or he'd return to Manhattan and kill you and Mort and enslave the rest of the zoo if I didn't come back here to dance with him and…" His voice trailed off. He found no words to express the atrociousness of the following.

"It's my fault you're all going to die" he whispered. "Now he knows I was being disobedient. Now he'll send his army of zombie androids to kill you."

Maurice moved a little closer to him, and Julien hugged himself around him and started sobbing in his chest. Maurice wrapped his arms around him and then he started to cry harder, and Maurice pulled him against his chest and let him cry.

"Shh… it's okay" Maurice murmured soothingly, overcome with emotion, "You're getting out of this, I promise you, and if it's the last thing I ever do!"

He wanted to smile to encourage Julien but could not bring himself to. He ran his paw down Julien's back in a consoling manner, trying to calm him. And when Julien looked up to him again he was weak, as if these tears had cost him every bit of his strength, and he mumbled, "This is my own fault. I've been such a slutty dancer. I was being too lively, too noisy, too attractive."

"That's _not _true!" Maurice contradicted much louder than he had wanted to, clenching one paw into a fist, "That's what he wants you to believe, but this is so _wrong!_ It's –."

Suddenly, the music playing beyond them was turned out completely.

"_Listen up everybody_" Clemson's voice suddenly blared over the zoo's PA system, "_I'm sorry to ruin the party like this but I am concerned to tell you there's an impostor among us! He's calling himself Lincoln Douglas and passes himself off as the zoo leader of the fictive town Grrfurjiclestan. He is internationally accused of stealing, killing, and fiscal evasion and has absolutely no permission to stay here. Use caution when you meet him and do report him to the authorities! The leader of the Hoboken Zoo, Señor Savio, will take receipt of all information regarding potential threats. The subject is wearing a bowler hat…_"

"Oh great, now he found out about it. Finally! My cover's blown" Skipper muttered, "Alright, everyone get ready to move out!"

"But how?" Maurice raised an eyebrow. "If we only show a whisker out there, we'll have the entire zoo against us, plus what's left of those robotic monsters!"

"Right. So here's the plan: Rico and me go look for the power supply of the zoo. Once we've shut it down, chaos is going to break out in that hellhole, offering us the only chance to get out of here unnoticed."

"Okay, but how are you going to get to the power supply unseen?"

"We'll need a distraction. And that's where you two cadets come in. – At least you, Ringtail. Apparently Clemson knows now that there's something suspicious about me, about Mr. Douglas, I mean. He leaves us in the cave together and when he comes back we're both gone – he'll guess we escaped together. So if you go back to him now and tell him you don't know of anything, he'll be confused for sure! – Just tell him we were having some silly small talk, and then I left wherever, and you just went to the bar to get yourself a drink or something. And voilà, he won't have any reason to send his androids out looking for the rest of us because you're still around, just like he wanted it. That lemur's no fool, though, he might see through this sooner or later, so we better hurry. But I think it should buy us a good amount of time if we go with this. So while Rico and me are on our way, you just go and party with him a little and –."

"No!" Julien clutched his tail with one paw, wrapping his other arm around Maurice's shoulders. "No, I'm not doing this!" Despair flickered in his weary eyes.

"Are you nuts?!" Maurice hissed at Skipper, "That mad lemur's not going to come close to Julien ever again!"

The leader groaned angrily. "Well, do _you _have a better plan?! Look outside! A zoo full of madmen! A fully armed, super strong robot army ready to kill! If we want to get out of here alive, soldier, it's the only chance!"

Maurice took a furious step towards him. There was accusation in his voice.

"He said he's not doing it. And you won't make him!"

"Come on now, don't be so pathetic!"

"_Pathetic?! _Do you realize at all what he's been through? Do you actually have the slightest idea what it's about to be –."

"_Found you, dirty birdies_" an electronic voice buzzed at them from behind, "_It's time to take out the garbage!_"

"We're compromised!"

Skipper clenched his flippers into fists when another dozen of biomechanical red lemurs invaded the dungeons. Rico immediately rushed at them with a blood-curdling cry. Skipper got into battle stance, ready to help him – and lowered his flippers again as he watched the two lemurs closely huddled up on the floor. Seeing them like this made his anger dissipate in the blink of an eye, leaving him with nothing but a twinge of guilt.

"Look, I'm sorry for what happened to you… I'm really sorry."

He knelt down beside Julien and took his paw into his flipper, forcing himself to look into the desperate lemur's face. Sometimes an apology was a million times harder to express than any complexly constructed strategy.

"And Maurice… I should've listened to you in the first place. I'm really sorry things could come to that… But now we'll teach that Clemson a lesson he won't forget! And then you won't have to suffer from any more of his crimes; you have my word!"

Julien bit his lips and stood up.

"Okay" he said, gulping air in hard, shuddering sighs, "I'll do it."

He was injured, jaded, the biting cold of Clemson's latest torture still seeping through his veins. He was anything else than in fighting form.

But if this worked, it was the last time he would have to be so close to Clemson. If this succeeded, everything that had tortured him the previous weeks and months would be over forever, leaving nothing but a shady memory that would soon fade. The thought of this gave him enough strength to put himself in danger one last time.

"Perfect." Skipper patted his shoulder.

While being entangled with two of Clemson's androids, Rico hacked up a heavy blaster which he tossed into his leader's flippers. Skipper handed it to Maurice.

"Here, take this. Stand guard in case the madman is coming too close to your king."

"O-okay…" Obviously a little uneasy, Maurice played around with the weapon, but nodded.

"Rico, just go on with what you're doing and make sure these… things don't get in our way. I'm going to care about the electricity on my own. Lemurs, I'm going to join you once I'm done. Everyone ready?"

"Yes."

"Got it."

"Wha? Uhuh. Kaboom, kaboom!"

* * *

><p><em>"One, two – here we go<em>

_Three, four – on the floor_

_Five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten_

_Now from the start we go again!"_

Julien looked back for the twentieth time at his advisor to make sure he would stand guard backstage, and the older lemur, for the twentieth time, nodded back to him encouragingly.

Then the lemur king took a deep breath and stepped into the spotlights.

The other guests barely noticed him as they were engrossed by the faint strains of a waltz which was just beginning to play.

Just as they had suspected, Clemson was up on the stage in a flash.

"Julien! You're here…?" The red lemur grabbed him by his shoulders. Julien's heart dropped as he found himself face to face with him again but he did his best to show his game face and keep firmly in mind that Maurice was there for him.

"Hi, Clemson."

He even had the nerve to wink at his enemy. When he started gliding across the floor, Clemson followed him closely. The red lemur had his remote with him but was obviously too confused by Julien's unexpected appearance to even think of using it.

"Where the hell have you been?" he asked through gritted teeth, "And where's that guy they call Douglas? What kind of dealings do you have with him?!"

"Douglas? What Douglas? Seriously, I don't know who or what you are meaning."

"Don't play dumb! Who is he? A friend? How much does he know about us? Creative Dance Award; don't make me laugh! Savio must take me for a first class stuck-up prig now. The guy was clearly trying to lure me away from you, so it's healthier for you to tell me the truth right away. – You snitched on me when the two of you were alone?!"

Clemson moved threateningly close to him; if not for the many guests around, he probably wouldn't have hesitated to attack him. But Julien bravely held his gaze. The only thought on his mind was the thought of Clemson being fooled right now and the joy about this nearly burst out of him. He was so filled with exhilaration he almost got carried away.

"Oh, you mean that penguin with the bowler hat? I wasn't knowing him, or what he was wanting. I thought you would know." Clemson's grip on his paw tightened painfully, and his claws pressed into the tender flesh of Julien's wrist.

"_Who was that guy?! _I'm not going to ask again."

A spark of fear flashed up in Julien's eyes, threatening to make him lose his cool.

"I'm telling you I'm not having the slightest idea! Seriously!" he insisted, trying to sound as convincing as possible, "How should I ever know why he came to your cave and told you things that weren't true?! And if he was my friend, why would he have left without me when I was hurt… or, if we had planned to flee, why would I be here with you then?"

It was obvious Clemson didn't believe him a word but he couldn't put his finger on the reason either. He didn't know what had happened in the dungeons; there was no way he could see through this distraction.

The red lemur shrugged, apparently deciding to believe Julien in the first place.

"Let's dance then" he said, "It's nice to see you in such good condition again so soon."

He took Julien's paw in his and placed a tender kiss on it. Then he took charge, wrapping his arms around him and pulling him close, greedily curving into the warmth of his abused body. Julien closed his eyes and pushed against his violent embrace as hard as he could.

"Now now, don't be so aggressive –."

Julien could feel the red lemur's breath against his cheek, hot and heavy. Clemson stroke Julien's silverish face fur back and kissed him again but his kiss wasn't gentle; it was demanding and filled with hunger and desire to possess the other. Clemson's body pressed against his, his paw slid down to Julien's hips. Julien choked out a stifled moan as he felt Clemson's sharp claws on frail skin, and pain shot through him again.

_Anytime now, Maurice –!_

Just then the red lemur tumbled over, knocked down by a hard punch against his jaw; entwined with Julien as he was, he pulled him right along and both lemurs ended up on the floor. The other dancers around them stopped in confusion as they watched them go down.

Maurice ignored them. Clearly unable to use the penguins' blaster, the older lemur had decided to go bare-pawed against their foe.

"Maurice…?" Clemson blinked, then looked up and focused on the unexpected but familiar guest. "I knew it" he said then, "I knew you were lying to me, Julien. Oh, you'll wish you wouldn't have."

"Your crimes end now, Clemson!"

Maurice fearlessly grabbed the red lemur by his chest fur and shook him, and then lifted his other paw holding the blaster as if to hit him again with its handle. "You're a criminal without any respect, a molester, a greedy, power-hungry villain beyond all comparison. If this was Madagascar, you'd be banned into the Fossa territory for what you've done!"

"You're threatening me?" Clemson's lip was split and bleeding but he unaffectedly wiped away a trickle of blood from the corner of his mouth, fixing his gaze on the weapon Maurice carried. "Before you do, you better make sure you're able to handle such dangerous toys."

In one smooth and very fast movement he wrung it out of Maurice's paws and pointed it against him.

Just then the music stopped dead and all the lights went off.


	14. Chapter 13 - Crash and Burn

CHAPTER 13

**CRASH AND BURN**

A heartbeat of silence.

Then the world around them went down in turmoil and darkness and screams.

Animals ran in every direction, yelling, crying, bumping into each other and calling for help. Everyone scrambled towards the zoo exit, pushing and shoving and overrunning each other, everyone trying to reach the golden doors fastest.

"Don't rush, don't rush!" someone called.

"Please stay calm, everyone" Savio's voice was heard from somewhere, "There's no need to panic! It's just a small technical fault which will be repaired as soon as possible."

Before anyone could trip up on him, Maurice blindly reached into the blackness for the paws of his king. Julien repelled him only for a moment until he realized these were his paws and not Clemson's. Maurice dragged him away, away, in just any direction the red lemur wouldn't follow them.

He feared that despite the darkness Clemson was going to shoot.

He feared that despite the darkness he was going to hit them.

But there was no sound but the screams around them.

Maurice pushed forward, his left paw holding Julien's, the other one jostling away anyone too close to them, hardly able to shoulder his way through the large amount of animals congregating around them. He kept pushing a way for himself and Julien through the crowd, not really aware of where they were actually going until he felt a flipper tight on his shoulder.

"This way. Move!"

Skipper's voice was cool and fearless, unconcerned and oblivious to all the noise.

He belly-slid ahead and the lemurs followed him as fast as they could. They swiftly, lithely moved across the dark.

All of a sudden a panicking elephant lady came running through the crowd at the top of her speed, easily knocking over the two lemurs along with a dozen of other guests in her way. Before he could rationalize what was going on, Maurice felt a push from behind and in an instant he was lying on the ground face pressed into the dirt. He used all his strength in an attempt to stand up again but the crowd didn't notice or care to help with his struggle. Instead they proceeded to trample on his helpless body to save themselves. He felt panic begin to pulse through him.

"Get up, soldier!"

Skipper's hasty command pierced through his terror. While the penguin leader endeavored to keep their surroundings clear, Maurice cursed and hastily picked himself up again but immediately noticed that Julien wouldn't do so. He was clearly too injured and fatigued to get back to his feet. Reaching down, Maurice placed one arm behind his knees and the other around his back, gently lifting the king into his arms.

"Hurry, you two" Skipper said in an urgent but not impolite tone.

Somewhere near the golden gates Savio and Rhonda hurried to install some auxiliary lighting which provided at least a minimum of brightness on the main visitor path. However, Skipper led the lemurs away and into an unlit lane so they were able to lose the crowd which now clustered on the main path.

They ended in front of one of the snow white walls. In one smooth motion Skipper climbed upon its gold-coated top. He impatiently waved at the lemurs to follow him.

"Hurry up! They mustn't see us, especially not Savio!"

Maurice looked down on his king, relieved to see his eyes open and looking back at him.

"It's okay" Julien murmured, shakily getting back on his own feet, "I can do this."

Julien tried to climb atop the wall as lithely and quickly as he would've done if he was well. But he wasn't; his first attempt to get up ended with him back on the ground, gasping for breath, barely able to get up again.

There was no time for this.

Without asking for his permission, Maurice lifted Julien on his back again and started climbing the wall. He pulled himself and Julien up with all his strength but the wall was at least nine feet high. Exhaustion burned every bone in his body and threatened to rip the last breath out of his lungs.

"Come on, lemurs, come on…!"

The penguin leader reached down a flipper for them.

Maurice grabbed it with the last of his strength and Skipper pulled them up.

He balanced on the top of the wall for a moment before leaping off the other side in a smooth somersault, rolled over as he landed and immediately jumped back to his webbed feet. Maurice ground his teeth on facing the height; he silently prayed to the Sky Spirits for a smooth landing and then hopped after him.

The heavy impact yanked him down; his legs crumpled under Julien's additional weight, and then he fell – luckily in a way Julien wouldn't get hurt.

"Get on your feet" Skipper ordered, not leaving Maurice more than a second to catch his breath. They sprinted out into the street. Skipper was beside him, every movement cool and controlled. Having him around was reassuring. And the Hoboken zoo was behind them.

Could it be they'd actually made it –?

Then, all of a sudden, the penguin leader noticed a familiar sound – the engine noise of Vroom-Vroom.

_But Rico is –._

"You won't get away that easily" a voice called to them.

Headlights stabbed the dark and hit their faces, letting them appear even paler.

From a parking lot a motor whined into motion: Vroom-Vroom came moving towards them. Behind a bright wash of white light they recognized the slender silhouette of a lemur.

Maurice and Julien leapt behind Skipper's back, waves of fear assailing them.

"You mad fool!"

Skipper clenched his flippers when he recognized Clemson behind the wheel. He must have seen through their plan to escape in the meantime, then stolen their car and just waited for them to arrive so he could stop them now.

And there they were, face to face with the enemy.

"Listen up, mad lemur, I might not be king of any zoo but if there's one thing I cannot stand, it's a bully" the leader growled at him, "If one animal makes it his business to infringe on the freedom of others, I make it my business to take that punk down!"

"Bring it on then, Skipper" Clemson challenged him, rubbing his paws together, "Or, should I call you Mr. Douglas? – Oh, I'd never thought revenge can taste so sweet!"

"What're you talking about revenge?!" Skipper growled, "If there's anyone who deserves to have revenge here, it's Ringtail!"

"Is that so? Think again!" The red lemur clenched his paws into fists. "Everything I did to him was what I did in compensation for you sending me off to Hoboken the first time I'd come to your zoo. If you hadn't forced me to come here, I would've never been locked away by Ms. Alberta for so long in this dark place, starving and with no daylight for months…"

His voice trailed off a little at the thought of this, and for a very short moment something flickered in his eyes, as if his own memories were scaring him, but he managed to catch himself. "But after all, I'm almost grateful things turned out like this" he continued, "In my lonely misery I had time to study and understand how the ones we'd been replaced by were working. It sure was a long and tedious time of studying which I continued after you'd chased me away from your zoo the second time. But eventually, as soon as I'd fully figured out how to control them, it offered me the chance for revenge I've always wanted! You've already had the chance to behold my creation… well, re-mastered modification of android doubles, to be honest."

"Ha, I bet without Kowalski's help these things would still be nothing but piles of loose screws!" Skipper huffed, "I knew this was the only reason why you suddenly were all into his nerdy stuff when you came to visit us that one time."

With a triumphant grin Clemson mimicked his own cool, smart self he had faked at their previous meeting. "Egad, old chap. Please express my heartfelt thanks to our highly esteemed colleague. It is very fortunate to me that he possessed the ability to improve my invention with the utmost of functionality."

He laughed at Skipper's angry face.

"You wouldn't have guessed that about me back then, would you."

The leader rolled his eyes. He had to admit that this wasn't the self-absorbed but totally inexperienced lemur he'd seen last, who was all empty talk and almost no action. He had indeed learned to do much more than wave a crowbar around, talk his evil plans out loudly to himself, and boast with an ever so maniacal laughter which actually sounded nothing but bizarre and revealed complete insecurity.

"Well, I admit you definitely learned one or two things since I saw you last. But it seems that in return you've unfortunately lost your mind. I mean, if you ever had one."

Clemson completely ignored this remark; his eyes were brimming with pride.

"These androids are the perfect creation; I can't thank Ms. Alberta enough for them. Reviving her army was the best thing I've ever done. They're a miracle. They made so many good things happen for me, all for me! Now I can finally say what I've always wanted, do what I never could… I can remove anyone in my way. They're my greatest invention. They're bringing me what I've always craved for… power beyond my wildest dreams. Hoboken is only the beginning. Soon I'll be king not only over this zoo but of many others, too… Animals in the whole world will bow to me!"

He raised his paws up high, his eyes glistening with delusion of his own grandeur.

"I've really outdone myself this time! It was amazing. It was fantastic. It was _me_. Ha, ha, ha! – Yikes! Where did that laughter come from?" He looked around himself with a start.

"It's your own, you nutcase" Skipper snarled, "And about your androids: while you're busy praising yourself here, one of my men, my demolition expert, is about to finish your 'perfect creation' right off."

Clemson clutched the steering wheel, gritting his teeth. "It's them who are going to finish _him _off" he growled, "And even if they don't,_ I_ will – as soon I'm done with _you_ here!"

With these words he floored the gas pedal.

The penguin car dashed towards them with squealing tires.

_"Move!"_

Skipper rushed upon the two lemurs, pulling them out of danger so hard all three of them stumbled and fell. The time they needed to get back on their feet Clemson turned the car around and tried anew to run them over. They escaped again. And again.

A few more times, barely.

After all, they ended up with one of the zoo walls in their backs.

Maurice and Julien ducked behind Skipper's back, carefully peeking over his shoulder at their adversary. With his flippers reached out to shelter them, the leading penguin stood facing the headlights of the car without a spark of fear in his traits.

Clemson's maniacal laughter echoed through the night sending shivers down Julien's spine as the red lemur cast one final look upon him. "What a waste, my lovely Lemur Lord" he snickered, "You were so damn beautiful. Too bad you're so spoiled."

Julien turned away with a whimper.

"How dare you speak to him like that" Maurice shouted back at the red lemur, "How dare you treat him like you did! He's your king! And you treat him like some pleasure slave!"

Clemson just shrugged. "Suits him well."

"Crazy lemur, do you actually have the slightest idea of what you've done?" Skipper added, trying to stall for time in order to cover their disadvantage, "You're completely ruining his life!"

"Well, I don't give a damn. I just make sure I get what I want: to become king at last."

"So these 'royal meetings' – calling this into life was a part of your plan, too?"

"No, that was Savio's idea. Actually he only wanted to see if anyone in the zoos around him is richer than him. But I used it to my advantage" the red lemur chuckled, "What else could've been a better opportunity to lure the loveliest of all lemurs into a place like this?"

"But why on earth did you have to drag Julien into all that?!" Maurice yelled at him, "Why couldn't you just go and act out your paranoia with your biomechanical buddies without bothering him?!"

Silence ensued. Clemson flashed a broad grin at them.

"For the pure fun of it" he said, shrugging again.

Then he threw his head back and burst out laughing. "Oh, lovely vengeance! – Of course I would've marched into your zoo some time anyways. But I just wanted to see how long I could get sweet, sweet Julien to believe I wouldn't if he sacrificed himself…"

His laughter spread through the dark, strangely high and clear, while his opponents stood smitten with dismay about such cold-bloodedness. Julien had covered his face with his tail. He was weeping softly, silently to himself.

"You'll pay for this!" Maurice looked ready to jump on the pink hood, pull Clemson out of the car and give him the worst beating he'd ever had but Skipper held him back.

Clemson watched this with amusement. "Uh-uh, you better don't try this, Maurice" he teased him, "You're never going to win."

The engine burst into life as the pink car rushed towards them again. The smell of burned rubber filled the street.

"Evasive!" Skipper yelled.

They ran straight along the wall, then split up and fled in three different directions.

Clemson turned the car after Julien first.

The lemur king tried to get away but after three giant leaps his legs faltered him. He stumbled and fell, ending up right in Clemson's way.

"No" Maurice yelled, "_No!_"

Skipper didn't hesitate to risk everything.

He crossed Clemson's way belly-sliding and, in passing, pulled up a manhole cover from the lane. His plan worked out: as the red lemur drove over it, Vroom-Vroom's right front wheel hit the hole and bounced out. He heard Clemson cry out in fright as the car began veering. Within the blink of an eye, it drifted to the right – missing Julien only by inches.

Maurice would've sobbed with relief if he hadn't been forced to numb all emotion and concentrate on surviving. He hurried to get Julien off the road.

Clemson, unfortunately, had quickly regained control and the brave maneuver left the penguin leader now exposed to a new attack: Skipper gave a loud cry as he was hit by Vroom-Vroom's fender. The impact pulled him off his feet and tossed him against the wall. His head and shoulders collided, bolts of pain shot down his back.

"Skipper!"

Maurice rushed to his side to pick him up, too, but the penguin leader braced himself and shook his head, signaling him not to care about him and run for his own shelter instead.

"Take cover! Move, move, move!"

They could run but not hide.

They may be able to dodge him for some time but in the end Clemson would always be faster. As long as they were stuck on the road, they were bound to their doom.

They bolted out of his way, running and belly-sliding blindly into the darkness, Maurice disastrously slowed down as he carried Julien all the way, with the devil hot on their heels – and finally, after a relentless pursuit, ended up cornered between two of the white walls meeting in a square angle and a truck parked closely to them. They were caught in a dead end, nothing but a short lane between them and Clemson.

"Time to meet your maker" the red lemur announced with a smug grin, "Now I'll crush you!"

Skipper hastily looked up – he could have well leapt up there on his own but definitely not helped the two lemurs up in time.

So he stayed back down, stepping in front of them again in a protective gesture.

He wasn't scared, not even now. He barely ever was.

Even though he would now be the one who was hit first, for some reason he seemed to be undeniably the last one to go under. He stood straight and strong, not leaving a doubt that in this fight he'd come out on top, although the situation seemed precisely the opposite.

"So this is how it ends –!" Maurice and Julien held on to each other closing their eyes.

"It's not." Skipper blinked as the pair of headlights stabbed at him, his blurred eyes trying to focus on what was going on behind the car lights –.

"Don't you lose hope just yet!"

– To focus on the familiar figure behind the car which was just about to move up from the underground out of the manhole he'd opened before –.

The car sped towards him, Clemson's eyes beaming at the prospect of his imminent success.

And then Vroom-Vroom suddenly careened completely out of control.

Something at the car's underbody blew up with a loud bang. Clemson screamed as the car began to fishtail. It almost spun around, uncontrollably swinging into the lane to the left, then like a ping-pong ball back to the right again, back and forth, several times over as if trapped on a sheet of ice. Clemson's paws were tightly gripped on the steering wheel and he didn't let go as he kept crazily looping from left to right, helplessly trying to regain control but nothing seemed to work.

Skipper and the penguins watched this smitten with amazement. Only a few feet away from them the car veered sharply and then crashed right into the wall. Vroom-Vroom smashed on its right side and started to roll franticly on the road. Many bits and pieces flew off its bodywork and into the air as it overturned.

Then, after having landed on the roof, it finally came to rest.

Out of nowhere a lit stick of dynamite flew through the air and right through the cracked the rear window into the car, delivering its driver the final blow.

The spectacular result was a huge explosion, followed by a crazy, blood-curling laughter. Huge and terrifying, clenched flippers raised up high, the silhouette of a penguin emerged from the smoking debris –

"Well done, Rico." Smiling, Skipper stepped towards the one who had saved their butts for the second time today. "Guess that's it for this case."

Rico nodded, the bloodthirsty expression in his eyes immediately softening and turning into a happy smile when Skipper patted his Mohawk.

To the rogue penguin there was nothing special about beating Clemson like this.

He just loved his car.

And _disliked _anyone who hot-wired it to try and carry out delirious plans with it.

The two brothers turned to look at the enemy. Clemson lay injured in the wreckage of the crashed car, bruised and battered by metal shards, his tangerine fur tangled and sooty and stained with oil. He barely moved. His eyes opened to slits and flickered anxiously upon Skipper as he bowed over him to feel his pulse. Every trace of pride and excessive self-confidence was gone; nothing but deep fear was left in his features.

Rico put his bazooka right between the red lemur's eyes and looked at his leader.

"Fire?"

Skipper hesitated. Then he shook his head no.

He bowed over Clemson again as if to feel his pulse once more.

"Listen up, dirty mammal, you can thank me for letting you live this time" he whispered into the red lemur's ear, his tone very dark and his eyes fierce, "But you bet I'll kill you outright, if you dare to set your dirty paws on one of my friends ever again. My soldier here has plenty of dynamite left, and if I ever catch you even thinking about doing such a thing again, he'll blow every single bone in your body into a million pieces, this I swear you!"

Barely conscious, Clemson confirmed his capitulation with a soft sound racked with pain.

"Fine." Skipper got up and turned away. "Let's move out of this miserable place."


	15. Chapter 14 - Villainmageddon

CHAPTER 14

**VILLAINMAGEDDON**

"Maurice, are we dead yet?"

Julien had squeezed his eyes shut when he asked so, holding the older lemur tight.

Maurice cautiously opened one eye, squinting against the stinging dust and smoke, not letting go of his king. "I… guess we're not." Silence surrounded them after the big bang.

"No, not at all. – Look at it!"

They hurried to the penguins' side. "You've made it!"

"Yeah but talk about cutting it close." The tight win made Skipper frown a little. "All credit goes to Rico again, by the way."

The rogue penguin growled modestly.

Julien and Maurice looked at Clemson lying in the ruins. "Is he –?"

"Nah, don't worry. He's alive and kicking."

Rico commented this with an angry grunt.

"Rico's really mad at him because in order to defeat him, he had to destroy what he loved most – Vroom-Vroom" Skipper translated. Rico added a deep snarl.

"In fact, he says that right now he feels like chopping that lemur's head off."

"Yeah, apart from the emotional loss… How do we come home now?" Maurice asked.

Rico started to gather what was left. After he had provisionally screwed two wheels onto the body again, Vroom-Vroom was at least able to roll again so he could push it.

Julien tugged his advisor's fur. "You carry me, Maurice?"

"Sure, but not all the way I fear. I can neither carry you from here to New York, nor will Rico be able push the car that far."

Skipper thought about this.

"Then let's put the lemur in the car and the car in the subway."

* * *

><p>His vision blurred, Clemson watched them leave.<p>

His mind was in a daze of pain and bitter disappointment. The acrid taste of blood covered his tongue. Something trickled down his cheek fur, warm and wet. When he swept the moisture away with a trembling paw, his fingers came off red.

He blinked a few times, trying to focus on them.

They didn't look back.

No one paid any more attention to the red lemur lying broken on the floor.

_To what, in that great tumult, they had completely forgotten, forgotten, forgotten – _the weapon he had taken from Maurice back on the dance floor.

No one watched how he reached out one trembling paw. How he stretched his fingers for the blaster that lay just an inch too far away from him to reach, buried under shards of the shattered side mirror.

How he twisted his neck and shoulder to get closer to it.

How his cramping fingers clutched around the handle.

How he lifted one shivering arm once more against his enemies who had turned their backs on them already… His paw was trembling so badly he could barely aim.

The shot echoed loudly through the dark.

Maurice went down in silence, his face twisted in agony, fingers clutching the bullet wound in his shoulder.

Julien's scream filled the night. Moments after his friend had gone down he collapsed between Rico's flippers as if he was never going to wake up again.

Clemson dropped the weapon and immediately threw himself back to the ground, returning into his motionless, broken state. However, just a moment later he heard Skipper's furious voice echo through the night: "It was that miscreant of a lemur! I saw it! He's not down yet!" Rico handed his leader a stick of dynamite. Skipper stepped towards Clemson.

"That's it; you asked for it."

Clemson quickly closed his eyes, mentally preparing for the end.

But just then the golden entrance doors of the zoo opened and a group of panicking animals were pouring out on the sidewalks, Hans right ahead of everyone. He stopped short when he noticed what was going on in front of the zoo, spotting Skipper, Rico and the lemurs among metal parts and splinters and all kinds of gasoline-smeared components scattered across the parking lots.

"Look everyone, it's Skipper!" he wailed, "The power outage is the penguins' work for sure. They must be trying to invade our zoo!" He pointed one of his clipped wings towards Clemson. "– Look, one of ours has fallen already! Help, help!"

"The penguins?" Savio's voice drowned the others'. "_¡Caramba!_ They're going to pay for messing with my zoo! – Get them!"

While a group of Hoboken residents followed his orders, a couple of guests crowded around Clemson. They tried to talk to him and keep him conscious but the accident had exhausted all of his powers. He blinked and tried to look up at them but couldn't focus. He was barely able to pursue the following events.

Their furious cries told him the chase was useless.

They were too late.

The New Yorkers were getting away; they were gone before they could get them, and so was his chance for victory. His army was destroyed. All the androids, months of work –.

The red lemur buried his face in his arm again, letting strands of maroon fur fall over his face. The last thing he saw before he closed his eyes was the blaster lying next to him.

A smile flitted across his face. He felt shattered but content at the same time.

He may have had lost once again.

But at least he had left marks.


	16. Chapter 15 - Aftermath

CHAPTER 15

**AFTERMATH**

Dawn was breaking over the horizon. The lights of the New York skyline sparkled white and pink and faintly gold. It was about four in the morning when they arrived at the Animal Care Building of the Central Park Zoo.

The journey had been hell. While Rico had pushed the car to the station, through the subway, and then to the zoo, Skipper's flippers and Julien's paws were covered in red as they had frantically tried to keep the blood which was pouring from Maurice's shoulder inside his body. They both knew this memory would haunt them for a long while.

The Central Park Zoo vet probably got the surprise of his life when someone kept ringing the doorbell of the Animal Care Building in the middle of the night; and when he opened, no one was there – but a pink toy car parked next to the doorsill with two wounded lemurs in it.

Skipper and Rico watched everything from a safe distance to make sure the vet would take them in, which he did without hesitating.

Julien was the first one to be treated. Compared to the older lemur he seemed alive and well; however, after Clemson had attacked him, he still had trouble breathing and a great deal of pains in his chest as at least two of his ribs were broken. The vet's assistant, Ms. Shawna, also diagnosed several cryogenic burns under his fur from his involuntary ice bath. Happily enough, his medical examination was still carried out quite quickly; the vet brought him back well bandaged, his pain lessened by some of the topical cream they had once used on Skipper as well.

With Maurice, unfortunately, it was quite a different matter.

When after two hours his vital signs weren't steady yet and he hadn't awoken even a single minute from his semi-comatose state, they rushed him in the surgery again.

"No, I'm not leaving him!" Julien cried when they took Maurice out of the cage they'd shared so far, "Let me out of here, too! Let me come along!"

"He'll be fine" Skipper tried to reassure him, "Just let the vets check him over again. We can't be of any help now."

Rico, behind a cigarette and a weary smile, growled his agreement.

"But he's hurt" Julien cried, "I want to be with him. – Maurice, I'm not leaving you!"

As soon as the vet had disappeared, Rico had easily opened his cage and Skipper got inside and sat down beside Julien, trying to calm him.

"We've done what we could. The rest of Maurice's fate is not in our flippers."

The door to the surgery was ajar. They could hear the voices of the vet and his assistant from the other room.

"What's the diagnosis, Sir?"

"Severely low blood pressure, massive decrease in blood volume, Ms. Shawna."

"Increasing production of lactic acid stimulates in the respiratory center, too, I see."

"The heart rate! Look at the heart rate!"

Julien's face went paler and paler and Skipper eventually belly-slid over to close the door.

When he came back he reminded Julien again that he urgently needed some rest but the lemur king wouldn't listen. He was dizzy with fatigue and fear, and he had wiped his eyes until they were red but he firmly declared he wouldn't lie back and rest even for a minute until he'd have Maurice back.

"He will be surviving this." He breathed a sob. "Right, Skipper?"

The leader couldn't say how many times he'd been asking him this in the past two hours. His answer remained the same, of absolute and incontrovertible conviction:

"He will."

Armies of androids fighting them.

Explosions harming them.

An insane lemur almost running them over with their own car.

They had gone through so much, survived all the threats Hoboken had cast at them once more; but if they lost Maurice now, they would've lost everything.

The thought of Maurice's fate being all in the hands of a human now sickened Skipper; at the same time he was relieved that it was at least this determined, tough-talking professional he'd known for a long time. So far, the bald human with the Asian-Indian accent had saved any animal taken to him.

Just as he thought so, the door opened again and the vet came back. Skipper ducked behind Julien's back and Rico quickly disappeared under the table.

"I have to go care about the gorillas now, Ms. Shawna" the vet called back over his shoulder to his assistant as he was leaving the office, "Please keep this lemur under observation for two more hours. I'll be back then to take another look at him. But if he hasn't woken up by then, I fear there's nothing more we can do."

"Yes, Sir."

Julien and the penguins shared a look in silent terror.

Julien released a quivering breath and glanced up at Skipper's profile. He couldn't stop shaking. Skipper's flipper found his paw and squeezed tight, and Julien wouldn't let go of it anymore. In the silence that ensued between them he hung his head, strands of fur covering his face, and tears began to flow down his cheeks. Skipper felt the softness of lemur fur on his feathers as he wrapped his flippers around him and Julien leant into him.

For one moment Skipper lost his composure, his eyes turning glassy with emotion, and he tried to speak but found no words. A thought flashed up in him – if the vet failed this time, he swore to himself he would jump right back into the Hoboken hell and kill Clemson! – but he quickly pushed it away before the possibility of Maurice truly being lost could take hold of his mind.

Over Julien's shoulder he shared a frantic look with Rico. In this very moment the world-class psychopath with his ever-unappeased hunger for destruction looked as if he was about to break into tears just as well.

They stayed this way for a while; Skipper sat with his flippers wrapped protectively around Julien's shoulders until his sobs had subsided a little. Chest heaving, he gazed up at Skipper.

"How could Clemson do this to him? It's me he wanted. Revenge on me, because I'm the king and he's not. How could he hurt Maurice like that?!"

Skipper patted his back comfortingly. "Look, there's nothing Maurice or you could have ever done to deserve what he did to both of you. But you can't argue with the insane. Which Clemson is, without the shadow of a doubt."

"I hate him so much. I never want to see him again!"

"Now, you don't have to anymore."

"This is such a good thing." He sighed shakily and leaned his head against Skipper's shoulder. "Thank you, Skipper, for getting me out of this."

The leader gave him a weary smile. "Never mind."

They were silent for a while as they waited. Julien sat slumped against Skipper in a semi-conscious state, too tired to stay fully awake but too churned up inside to fall asleep.

Rico offered his leader a cigarette but Skipper refused it. He urgently needed some sleep himself. The terrors of Hoboken had worn him out once more. However, as a strike team commander he expected himself to stay awake for as long as it was necessary. After all he'd been trained to function on less sleep than he'd had now.

Still, he felt more overcome with weariness than he had in a long time. As time passed on and on, his senses began to blur. Everything he perceived was covered by a strange haze of fatigue, and in another minute his eyes closed of their own accord. He didn't want to, didn't even realize he was doing so but he slowly drifted away into a black void.

Voices poured at him from the darkness.

_"I feel I'm losing his trust. It's this red lemur who's gotten between us!"_

_"But it's Hoboken. Remember? Hoboken! – If you have to go there at all, at least take us along!"_

_"I want my friend to be out of this misery!"_

_"They're his zombies. They be punching you and kicking you and hurting you if you don't do what Clemson says!"_

_"I'll crush you!"_

"Maurice…!"

Skipper shot up to a sitting position, his eyes wide with terror. Every inch of him felt cold. His heart racing, he blinked and looked around, silently cursing himself for having dozed off like this.

Julien next to him was awake; he could see his yellow eyes faintly glow in the dark. The lemur king was clutching his flipper so tight it hurt.

The office door had just been unlocked and opened: the vet returned to ask his assistant about Maurice's condition.


	17. Chapter 16 - That Light

CHAPTER 16

**THAT LIGHT**

"There you go! You're a lucky little guy."

The vet came back out of the surgery carrying Maurice's cage. He put it down next to Julien's. "Just take it easy, fellows. You're going to stay here for a while; a little rest and in a week or two you'll both be as good as new."

He left the office along with Ms. Shawna.

"Maurice!" Julien grabbed his advisor's paws through the bars, his heart brimming over with glee as he felt the older lemur return the grip. Rico then opened his cage and they gathered around him. Maurice already looked worlds better. A faint blush of broken fever still tinted his cheeks but there was a healthy color to his face. His wounded shoulder had been bandaged cleanly; the topical cream made him keep it still.

Blinking wearily, he choked out a ragged, "It's good to see you guys" when they bowed over him.

Julien settled next to him, leaning his back against the cage bars and gathered the older lemur into his embrace. He placed one paw to his white chest fur so he could feel Maurice's heart beat against his fingers. It was more than a relief; in this moment it was the most beautiful thing in the world to him: feeling life in his friend's body.

"I was worrying about you" he whispered, "So much. I… thought I was going to lose you!"

Maurice smiled and, with all the strength he had left, hugged the younger lemur back. He reached up a shaking paw and put his palm to Julien's cheek.

"You know I would never leave you, my king."

Skipper and Rico smiled at each other on watching them happily reunited like this.

"How're you feeling, gray lemur?" the leader asked.

"Pretty awful" Maurice admitted in a tired but very happy voice, "But I guess I could be worse off. At least I'm alive."

Skipper's smile widened as he basked in a fuzzy, almost euphoric feeling of triumph. Rico high-fived him and he high-fived back a couple of times.

Now, for the first time, thinking back about their escape from Hoboken felt like a victory.

* * *

><p>Julien and Maurice spent more days in the Animal Care Building.<p>

As time went by the shadows of Hoboken lighted to gray, but it seemed to Maurice they just wouldn't completely fade.

These days were quite amusing: Mort came to visit them every morning and tell them something they could laugh about. Usually Phil and Mason were with him; luckily the chimpanzees had consented to host him in their habitat until the two older lemurs would be discharged. The penguins visited them often, too, and also other animals came to spend funny hours with them.

The vet cared well about them the entire time.

Despite their physical weakness they had a truly pleasant stay.

But the nights were still sinister, riddled with bad memories and dreams.

Maurice hardly slept; it wasn't too bad because he had time to rest over the days. When darkness fell, however, he would stay awake and watch over Julien. He held him tight whenever he shivered in his sleep, doing what he could to keep nightmares away from him. Sometimes his warm embrace was enough to provide him good sleep. But there were also nights when Julien would wake up screaming, then throw his arms around Maurice and cling to him, hiding his face on the older lemur's chest and stammering muddled words in deep anxiety. And he wouldn't calm down until the advisor had fully, entirely convinced him they weren't in Hoboken but safely home in their zoo.

Only very slowly, these nights grew rarer.

Maurice wondered how much Clemson had hurt him. The memories of the red lemur seemed to have scarred him deeply inside. This pain seemed so heavy on his heart, carved into every part of him.

Sometimes Maurice tried to speak to him about all that had happened. But whenever it came to this, Julien would turn away from him, keeping his distance and staring off into nowhere, his eyes mired in hurt and shame. He winced at the grief it brought him to think of it again, and then Maurice would change the subject because he didn't want him to feel bad.

But he really wanted to see him again the way he'd always known and loved him, running and jumping and dancing again like a young lemur.

Because this was one thing he was sure about: Julien really needed to dance.  
>To get down and boogie, shake his booty again, shake it all off, dance the night away.<p>

And, sooner than he'd thought, they both got the perfect chance to do so.

About a week after they had returned from Hoboken, one of the many famous street fairs was announced in Central Park.

It so happened that this day was a Friday.

Julien and Maurice were trying to solve a jigsaw puzzle Marlene had brought along for them during her last visit when soft music began to reverberate throughout the room. Maurice got up and looked out of the window.

"It looks like they're having some kind of music festival over there" he happily announced, "Look, everyone's out on the streets already."

"Fine" Julien replied, not paying much attention.

Distant applause floated in from outside; a song ended and another one began. The music filled the room with the soft sounds of the familiar tune. Julien immediately dropped the puzzle piece he was holding and looked up in surprise: it was the tune of his favorite song.

_"...I love how all girls a move them body! And when you move you body and move it nice and sweet and sexy, alright –?..."_

"Come on, don't you want to go out and dance?" Maurice encouraged him, "I know you like that song, don't you!"

For the first time after a very long time Maurice could see in his eyes that he wanted it; Julien's eyes lit up with a spark that was always there when he would sense a good groove.

But he turned away, refusing to give in to desire.

"We're injured" he announced, "We shall not be dancing."

The older lemur frowned; he wanted the music to come between him and his demon but at the same time he didn't want to drive Julien into anything he didn't want.

"Come on" he softly insisted, "I know you want it; you want to be out there and move it, move it!"

But the king shook his head, tucking his knees to his chest and squeezing them.

"It'll only be reminding me of bad things. You know. _These_ things."

He wanted to turn away again but this time Maurice wouldn't let him.

"Hey." The advisor took him by his shoulders. His voice was soft and friendly. "Look at me." – Reluctantly, Julien did. – "You mustn't let it happen! You can't let Clemson take away from you what you love most."

Julien nervously bit his fingers. Maurice could tell from the look on his pale face that he wanted to believe him and follow his words.

"Have a little faith in me, won't you? You know I keep my word; and I swear you there's nothing that can hurt you now."

Julien hesitated for a long tense moment. Outside the music played – the song that reminded them both so much of their home, Madagascar. The bass line stomping along, all the permeating drums, foot-stamping, cries of 'hey!' and 'shi di ri da', that told of jungle secrets, baobabs and water slides, combined with new moves and dances, with disco beats and electronic melodies all the lemurs loved so much.

They hadn't heard this song for quite a while, and the amount of nostalgia it brought upon them was overwhelming. Every memory of their home they held dear seemed to come alive with these notes. Julien returned Maurice's look, in his eyes a flaming glow. His body and soul ached to feel whole again, and staying away from it now would be more painful to him than any memory of Hoboken could ever be.

He took a deep, calming breath and then grabbed Maurice's paw. "Let's do it!"

They climbed up on the sill of the pushed up slide window.

"But you must stay with me, Momo."

"You know I always will."

They held each other's paws as tight as they could and then jumped out of the window.

All the other animals had already left their habitats and gathered on the visitor paths.

The zoo had closed earlier today because of the festival so Alice wasn't there to care about this. She was probably somewhere among the surge of humans assembled in the park.

The orchestra was close enough to the zoo to nearly deafen Roy and Joey, who were standing at the very front next to the entrance doors. Julien got more animated with every step they were taking through the ecstatic crowd of animals.

"Pretty smashing, isn't it" Maurice commented when they took a look over the zoo walls at the enormous loudspeaker stack. His entire body shuddered in response to the clamor.

"Oh yeah!" Julien replied, his eyes brimming with joy, "How crazy is this?! Yeah, I'm feeling it! That's a serious ultra-bass! I think I just lost my hearing but my heart is feeling this."

Before he began to move to the rhythm he glanced back at Maurice, and for a wonderful moment the older lemur saw that his fear was gone, not a trace lingering in his features.

And then Julien threw his arms out wide and embraced the light and music.

He danced like he'd never been hurt. Boogied on down like nothing could ever stop him.

Without the red lemur's face in a mist of bad memories.

Without a thought of him roaming his dirty, greedy paws over him.

The music purified his mind and soul until there was nothing left to do him harm.

He abandoned himself to it, found his bliss and dived fully into it. He was the life and soul of the party again, beautiful inside and outside. The music seemed in synch with his heartbeat. No one could light up the place like he did. So strong, so stylish, crazy, attractive, and sexy. He was wild and free like wind and lightning, like a soaring kite against the bright blue sky, and hot like summer, like a fiery flower and the sun.

And above all, he was healthy. Cuts and bruises still weakened his body as well as a bad pneumonia from his night in the well but now these were only meaningless leftovers of the past. They would soon heal up completely, and the energy that pulsed inside him now would flow even more freely through his veins.

The other animals turned to watch him dance, each one of them beginning to clap to the beat with their paws, flippers, and wings.

The penguins were among them. Rico and Private enthusiastically hopped up and down to music while the other two stood like pillars on the zoo wall, as firmly and motionlessly at attention as always, their faces stern but filled with an expression of contentment.

"The lemurs shouldn't be out here" Kowalski said in a lecturing tone, "They're not healthy yet. We should go and tell them to get back inside."

But Skipper shook his head, indicating him to let them continue.

Julien doffed his crown and bowed to Maurice, asking him to join the dance. The older lemur rolled his eyes but smiled softly in return, letting Julien take him by his paws and lead him over the place. And then they danced and remembered Madagascar.

Sunny skies, hot days, warm nights and constant parties. These days when they were just dancing and they couldn't get enough, in the morning and at night, dancing the crazy dances every lemur loved, the kind of dances that made them lose their minds. Light-flooded days and crazy nights in which they couldn't stop their bodies, caught in the ravishing music and dazzled by a panorama of lights and colors illuminating the jungle around them. And when the resonance of the familiar melodies captivated them in utmost bliss, they only wanted to dance, dance together the best they could.

Maurice was overwhelmed with joy to see Julien so vibrant and happy again. Relief filled his heart, and the music was alive and warm inside him as well. The familiar notes soothed him, touched the very core of his being and filled him with a deep sense of peace. And when he looked up at Julien, he saw what he had missed for so long: he had that light around his eyes again, this smile imbued with soul, this gift from the Sky Spirits: to delight and enthrall others by the mere fact of being in their presence.

"Give a big one to the King of Madagascar!" Maurice shouted when the song was over, grabbing Julien by one of his wrists and lifting his paw up in the air.

They drew screaming ovations.

They took deep bows to everyone and then made their way back to the Animal Care Building. After all, they weren't both fully healthy yet. If they were, they would've danced the rest of the day and night through but right now one song was enough to make them feel exhausted and worn out as if they'd danced a whole week non-stop.

They barely made it back through the window and inside the building.

A moment later they lay on the white stretcher where they'd been before, side by side, barely able to catch their breath. As soon as the adrenaline rush was gone, sudden bouts of fatigue attacked them but it was a kind of fatigue which felt good.

Maurice pulled the sheets over them and Julien nestled close to him and smiled at him.

"This was good" he whispered with shining eyes, "It was so good!"

Moments later he was asleep.

Maurice lay on his side, a pillow under his injured shoulder, facing him. Julien looked so much younger when he was sleeping. It seemed he still had the face of a teenage lemur, carefree, utterly relaxed and so very innocent.

He felt Julien's breath against his chest and absently moved a stray of fur from his cheek.

In his sleep Julien reached one arm over and wrapped it around Maurice's waist instinctively. The older lemur tugged him closer, and Julien nuzzled his white chest fur, his eyes closed tight. His body was warm against Maurice's; they were both encompassed with warmth and safety. Maurice smiled. Slowly but surely this felt like the best day he had experienced in a long time.

He stayed where he was, not thinking of anything but how glad he was that all had turned out so well, until Julien's steady breathing lulled him to sleep as well.

From the windowsill of the Animal Care Building the four penguins watched them with a smile, high-fiving without their flippers touching, so they wouldn't make a sound that could wake the two of them.

Outside the music continued playing.

Life was fruity and delicious again, filled with music and wild dances.

* * *

><p><strong>AN:** _This is it! I thank you all so much for your wonderful reviews and for being with me all along. Seriously, I would've never ever believed I'd get so much support. I want to give you all a big hug before I say goodbye for now, and when I might return here towards the end of the year to give a certain red lemur a comeback, it would be such a pleasure to see you all again. Stay warm and take care! - N.  
><em>


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